


No Lies, Just Love

by jeffersonhairpin



Series: No Lies, Just Love [1]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Disordered Eating, Future Fic, M/M, Recovery, Suicidal Thoughts, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 03:41:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21451438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeffersonhairpin/pseuds/jeffersonhairpin
Summary: After Oliver left, Elio fell into a deep, consuming depression which continued even long after it stopped being directly to do with Oliver. Desperate to escape his pain after so many years, Elio finally turns to alcohol to cope.When Oliver divorces his wife six years after their summer he returns to find Elio, now living in New York, much changed and much worse for wear.
Relationships: Oliver & Elio Perlman, Oliver/Elio Perlman
Series: No Lies, Just Love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619161
Comments: 45
Kudos: 159





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for disordered eating, alcohol abuse/alcoholism, depression, suicidal thoughts - suicide is seriously considered and a note is written but an attempt is never directly, physically made.
> 
> All the song lyrics quoted are linked at the bottom of them :)

“Drowning...  
In the sea of love,  
Where everyone  
Would love to drown...

But now it’s gone.  
It doesn’t matter what for.  
When you build your house,  
Then call me...”

[\- Sara, Fleetwood Mac](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOVyBhVsOV0&t=0m52s)

Elio had never been a sad child. 

Introverted, thoughtful, solitary even? Those things, yes, but his parents and friends would never have called him a sad person growing up. 

It was watching the train pull out, taking Oliver irretrievably away with it, that Elio first felt the life sucking exhaustion that would come to be such a fixture in his world, a key determining factor in the course of his life - it became so achingly familiar with time, like a ratty sweatshirt, too stained and full of holes to be presentable to anyone else, that would remain in rotation just because it was simple, easy to slip into when no one else was around.

On the car ride home it gave way to the relief of true heartbreak, true grief, only for it to return to him as he laid in bed for the whole afternoon that day, and the next day, and the next, only getting up to relieve himself and to eat when Mafalda absolutely insisted – though even those tasks felt like too much. He couldn’t shower, couldn’t talk, couldn’t _breathe_, because it all just took too much effort. Only sleep seemed a worthwhile endeavour. 

If only he could sleep the rest of his life away and skip straight to the part where he and Oliver got to meet again, wherever people go when they die.

  
“You left the beach  
By way of the water.  
Slow and discrete,  
The waves took you under.

You’ve never been so sad…

Oh, I want love and  
Someday I’ll have it,  
Maybe not with you…”

[\- I Want Love, The Trouble with Templeton](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewtv7zCkQ40&feature=youtu.be&t=10)

  
His parents tried to encourage him to go out at night with Marzia or play them a tune on the piano, but it was like moving through molasses to try to perform even the simplest of tasks. He was just so tired; even after sleeping all through the day and barely moving a muscle, it felt like his limbs were made of lead. He didn’t even cry. 

He tried some days but found he'd lost interest in all of his previous occupations, and eventually even Marzia stopped visiting, gently telling him to call her when he was ready to start being human again. He wasn’t ever going to be ready, he thought, so he slept what remained of the summer away in the bed where he and Oliver had held each other and known each other, too wrapped up in recalling his scent and in this heaviness upon him to finish transcribing, or to realise how truly bored he should have been.

After a few weeks Samuel confronted Elio gently and sympathetically, but pointedly, on the sofa where he had told Elio that he should embrace his feelings weeks earlier.

“I told you to feel your grief, Elio." He implored. "This isn’t feeling your grief, and heartache, I see you – you’re not feeling anything.” No response, just Elio staring at the ground, rubbing a thumb over his other hand in his lap. 

“Are you even listening to me?” He asked. Elio finally looked up.

“I’m sorry papa, I’m just tired.” He said slowly with a voice hoarse for lack of use, meeting his eyes for only a moment before blinking and looking down. 

Samuel sighed.

“I know you’re tired Elio.” And he knew it was true as he studied his son’s face and hugged him to his side – for all his sleeping, he still had deep, dark bags under his eyes, and the pale look about him of someone deprived of sleep for days. He breathed out again, repeating, “I know that you’re tired.”

There was silence while Elio gathered his sluggish thoughts.

“This…” the boy started eventually, taking a long, wearied breath. “This doesn’t feel like a choice. I’m not choosing to be this way, I just can’t…” He trailed off, seemingly exhausted by the conversation and unwilling or unable to find the word he was looking for. Samuel gave in, accepting that pushing the issue right away wasn’t going to help.

“Why don’t you just come with us down to the pond and we’ll take in the sun, hmm? You need some sun, I think.” He suggested gently, letting the hug go and nudging his son’s shoulder, smiling encouragingly at him.

“Okay papa.” 

So they gathered up a picnic and settled by the water. 

At first it felt like a victory to Annella and Samuel, but after they all exchanged a few ribbing jokes and coaxed Elio into eating a sandwich – the boy was wasting away – he quickly fell asleep, curled up in the afternoon sun. Six months ago it would have been a sweet sight, and they might’ve made a game of sprinkling shoots of grass in his hair, but now… it just served as a reminder of their utter powerlessness in the face of their son’s all-consuming depression.

  
“Guess I did what I did believing  
That love is a dangerous thing.  
Oh but that couldn't hurt any more…  
Than never knowing.

Not a night goes by  
That I don't dream of wandering  
Through the home that might have been...

[\- A Home, Dixie Chicks](https://youtu.be/Y7uAy0B5WFY?t=113)

  
Eventually school started up again and it stopped even being entirely about Oliver's absence – though he was never far from Elio’s thoughts. The heavy, syrupy numbness around him was just a state of being. It wasn’t enjoyable, but it was somehow comfortable. Easy. It fit. It was as though he had fallen down a deep hole, and it was easier to just lie in it with the frogs and the mud and the insects than to try to claw back out. It wasn’t living but it required no effort, and he had no effort in him to give. So he didn’t call for help and he didn’t move a muscle. He just breathed, and closed his eyes to the sky above, pretending it had never been there for him to enjoy in the first place.

At first it made it impossible to focus, and his grades were set to suffer for it. It was a week out from all his assessment when the fear of failure finally penetrated the thick fog that had been clouding his thoughts and emotions for what felt like years. He threw himself ferociously into catching up, studying all day and all night, merely napping when he got the chance. At first his parents were happy to see their son seemingly emerging from the pit he’d been in and engaging with the world again, but he still didn’t talk to his friends, he still didn’t go out, and he still spent all of his time in his room, only hunched over his desk now instead of in the bed.

There was intensity to his focus but it wasn’t the passion or interest he’d shown when devouring the classics or playing around with Bach. It was passionless, driven by a desire for occupation and a need not to fail. His playing improved, but it was all technique with no passion. There was no little flourish at the end, no playing Bach as if he were Busoni… It made him very good, and it got him into some very, very good schools, but… Annella and Samuel saw that the light in their boy was gone, possibly forever. Their precocious, emotional Elio was in there somewhere, between the depressed boy in the bed who wanted to sleep forever, and the cold, analytical one who didn’t seem to sleep at all. They missed him, but they continued to love the stranger in their son’s body anyway, holding his place until he came back.

He moved away to go to university, he excelled, he graduated with honours, he even seemed to be interested in the complexity of what he was playing a lot of the time... But he never mentioned any friends on the phone. And he never mentioned anything exciting he was doing. And he never had any news if his father asked if he had met someone special. It was like his whole emotional life had been in limbo since Oliver left, as though Oliver had taken Elio’s capacity to feel packed up in a suitcase with him when he went. 

Hearing the monotone voice on the other end of the phone line once a week, Samuel feared his son would never have the ability or the will to experience love, or even pure, simple joy again.

  
“And I'm not sure what the trouble was,  
That started all of this.  
The reasons all have run away,  
But the feeling never did…

It's not something I would recommend.  
But it is one way to live.  
Cause what is simple in the moonlight  
By the morning never is.”

[\- Lua, Bright Eyes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSBs-hiapo4&feature=youtu.be&t=200)

  
Following his graduation Elio didn’t have any plans, so he moved back home for a time. But he quickly realised that being away, at least he’d only been reminded of Oliver once or twice a day – sometimes he could even go a few days or a week without his heart dropping at what he'd lost… But back at the villa he was everywhere. In the bed sheets, in the icebox, the telephone, the table, the pond, the _walls_… Elio felt ambushed, after having found something like a middle ground at university.

After a few days of being back to lying in bed, completely sapped of the will to move and trying to sleep the time away, he knew he couldn’t stay. He moved to New York mere weeks later, thinking that perhaps with half the world between him and the site of his ruination, at least he’d be able to get back to the way things were at university; just go from one task to the next, get through life by not actually living it… But it wasn’t like that, at all. The heaviness over him never shifted, the clouds never broke open or blew away. Only now there was no study to be done, no parents to badger him to get out of bed or shower or eat or move. He didn't even have his piano now.

Eventually Elio did have to leave the apartment to work, but as it turned out, a degree in piano playing didn’t qualify him for much. He managed to find consistent work playing at an old-fashioned piano bar, which allowed him to play, but never what he wanted and he had to supplement by shifting boxes at a warehouse a few nights a week to subsist. It felt strange to be doing such manual, menial work, but it allowed him to keep not thinking or to at least live with his melancholic thoughts in relative privacy. Most of the men there didn’t talk to each other either because they spoke poor English or because they were nomadic biker types just passing through, there to get the money and go. It suited Elio’s silence well.

The owner of the bar was always looking to get more enthusiasm or flair or… real involvement from Elio, which he said he would work on but never actually did. He just didn’t have it in him. Occasionally he’d paste a smile on for patrons watching him play the simple pieces they wanted to hear, but it was just all so boring and exhausting... his boss seemed to understand that he was doing his best.

One night the pretty bartender came up to Elio and placed a tumbler of whisky on the piano.

“Free for our pianist – maybe it’ll help you lighten up, o artiste.” He winked and walked away. Elio twitched the side of his lip at the well-meant gesture and sat only for a moment before downing the whole double in one go. 

“Another.” He called out to the now-smiling bartender, who happily obliged, several times that night.

It _did_ loosen Elio up. There were more flourishes and improvisations that night, if for no other reason than he kept fucking up the how the pieces were supposed to go. People seemed to love it though, and tips rolled in more freely that night than any other previous. He almost felt… happy? No, not quite happy. Perhaps he felt something like excitement? It wasn’t the utter, bleak, grey monotony his life had almost always been since that summer. It wasn’t all the same, something had finally changed. At least for the night. 

He slept with the bartender that night, both of them drunk and sloppy. He learned that his name was Johnathan, and that he loved it when Elio spoke Italian or French in his ear, and that he was very good at giving head. It was the first sexual experience he’d had with anyone since Oliver, the first time since that it had seemed like something worth doing. 

It was soulless and mindless and it made him feel good. It felt like a betrayal later but it felt good in the moment, and he knew he needed to quash that feeling of betrayal, because there was no one to betray - Oliver had moved on and gotten married to someone else; he wasn't coming back. 

  
“Got a flask inside my pocket,  
We can share it on the train.  
And if you promise to stay conscious  
I will try and do the same.

Well we might die from medication  
But we sure killed all the pain…  
What was normal in the evening  
By the morning seems insane.”

[\- Lua, Bright Eyes](https://youtu.be/TSBs-hiapo4?t=164)

  
Elio woke up with a headache and the return of the molasses around him.

So he did the same thing the next night at the bar. And then the next night, and the one after that. He did it every night he played at the bar in fact, until he began starting early, having a few beers in the afternoon before going to work. Lots of people did that, right? And having a few drinks in the morning afterwards to counteract a hangover wasn't uncommon, so it was fine. Then when work at the warehouse began to be crushingly mind-numbing and depressing he started to take a flask with him into the warehouse – it wasn’t like he needed to think to do the work anyway, so what was the point in feeling awful there when he could just… not? Lots of the guys there did that, so how bad could it be?

It all just got away from him until it was just easier to not stop. And when it got worse and he started to think about how, deep down, he knew he shouldn't be doing it, a very simple way to push all of that away was to do it some more, curing every numb or hurt feeling with the warmth of amber liquid poured down the throat at any hour. 

Why wouldn’t he? It didn’t make him happy but it made everything so much easier, and there was no one there to stop him.

His apartment grew messier, the bottles scattered and left abandoned until whenever he could be bothered to do something about them. He woke in the afternoon, drank enough to function after the previous night, went out to work, and drank enough to muster the will required to pack or play. Sometimes he messed around with Johnnie if he could find the desire somewhere beneath the knowledge that he was only becoming more of a waste of potential day by day… and then he passed out, only to wake up and do it all again. Sometimes it made him cry and cry, but it was better than the utter, unrelenting emotional silence of before.

Sometimes he was even able to genuinely laugh with Johnnie over a couple of drinks now, which he couldn't do before; so how bad could it really be for him, he thought.

...But he knew it was bad. He knew it only made him a worse person, a less able performer, a shittier son… but it felt better than before, so it was easy to just say one more, one more. Without deadlines, without that need not to fail that had kept him going through university, he was completely aimless. A ship without compass or rudder, only capable of planning the next few metres ahead... 

...And eventually, after a few months spent in New York, he slowly realised that he had already failed. 

There was nothing to try for, it was too late. 

He felt he was in freefall. 

He knew it was bad when he stopped even bothering going to different places for his alcohol to trick them into thinking he was just a casual consumer like all the others. He couldn't even keep track of where he last bought and he knew he looked like shit - no matter how hard he tried, they would know him, if not by his name then by his hollow face and his shaking fingers. So fuck it. 

It got really bad for a while. He ended up in hospital with alcohol poisoning a few times over the year but there was no one around to notice, no one who would know if he didn’t tell them, so he didn’t. It went through phases, but mostly it was something like bearable. He could deal with it. It was all okay as long as nobody who mattered knew, because the alcohol could solve all the problems it caused for him in his immediate life.

His parents could hear the difference when they called him, he knew, but he was sure they didn’t know why and he told them he’d been feeling better. In his new short-sightedness it didn’t occur to him that one of them might stop by one day and unravel his badly spun web.

  
“Well I’ve been down so god damn long,  
That it looks like up to me.  
Well I’ve been down so baby damn long,  
That it looks like up to me.

Why don’t one of you people  
Come on and set me free…”

[\- Been Down So Long, The Doors](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJuDD93JbOw)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Suicidal thoughts heavy in this chapter and beginning to act out an attempt before deciding not to. He thinks through different ways he could kill himself for about a paragraph so truly, if you’re affected by suicide at all it’s probably not a good idea to read.

“Well can I come in?”

Elio stands gaping in the door. Impossible. A million thoughts race through his mind. _He can’t see the apartment, the bottles; fuck he’s going to smell it on me there’s no way I can hide this why didn’t he just _call_ first? ___

_ __ _

_Probably for exactly this reason, idiot._ Fuck.

_ __ _

“Um, do you wanna go out somewhere instead?” He knows he sounds stressed but he’s too caught off guard to hide it.

_ __ _

“Are you hiding a lover in there?” Samuel jokes, trying to lighten his son’s obviously distressed mood.

_ __ _

“Ah, no," Elio does not join in on the joke, deflects it. "I just don’t have any food in. Why don’t we just go get some breakfast?”

_ __ _

“Well it’s past noon, so it’ll be lunch.” His father says pointedly, trying to get a look into the apartment behind Elio. He definitely sees some of the mess, but enough to gather the situation? If so he decides to play Elio’s game anyway. “You said you were taking care of yourself on the phone, why don’t you have any food in?”

_ __ _

“I’ve been busy.”

_ __ _

“With what?”

_ __ _

“Work, life, just stuff, okay? Can we please just go out?” He knows he’s being snappy, he knows his father can sense the distance between them – even at his lowest he’s been honest with him. He doesn’t know how to hide something like this from his father.

_ __ _

Samuel senses all of this, but acquiesces. “Let’s go, I’ve heard about a good place nearby – my treat.”

_ __ _

Elio does his best to keep the mess inside hidden as he leans down to slip into his ratty sneakers, but Samuel sees and smells the situation well enough to know.

_ __ _

His stomach sinks as he takes in the mess, the genuine filth, the countless bottles… he wouldn’t have guessed his son would go this route in coping with what he has always refused to have acknowledged as a deep, consuming depression. There were no signs pointing to this, but the devolution is clear, can be smelled on Elio’s breath and seeping from his pores, seen in his tight smile and his loose, stained clothing as he shuts and locks the door… In the shaking of his talented fingers… 

_ __ _

Moving away was supposed to help him get away from his memories and heal, but instead it’s just allowed him to self-destruct without the meddling witnesses.

_ __ _

Before, Samuel might have just confronted Elio about something like this, spoken to him eye to eye and tried to have an open discussion… but he senses that tactic will no longer work from Elio’s trying to hide the mess. Elio’s defences will be up over this; this thing he knows he wants to keep, will guard preciously as though his prize weren’t hurting him. He will hate himself for it, but he knows his son will do it. He’ll be too embarrassed about it all to be open or vulnerable.

_ __ _

Samuel shakes himself out of his reverie of dread and gives his son a quick hug before gesturing for Elio to lead the way out of the building. 

_ __ _

_ __ _

They haven’t sat down long before it starts. 

_ __ _

“I’m not in New York long, just a stop on my book tour. I’m surprised you weren’t expecting me to drop by, I told you about this speaking engagement on the phone.” Samuel says in a conversational voice.

_ __ _

“I told you I’ve been fucking busy.” Elio’s tone is halfway between angry and ashamed, as he folds his arms and looks away. Samuel was right; this would not be a catch-up meeting between two adults, but rather more like watching a wounded tiger lash out from its corner.

_ __ _

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Elio, there’s no need to be angry.” He says calmly.

_ __ _

“I’m sorry, I’m just a little stressed out right now.” He huffs, ashamed.

_ __ _

“Can we be honest with each other here?” He asks, genuinely, not wanting to beat around the bush. Elio nods warily. “I think we both know why you’re upset, and lashing out.” He says, not unkindly. 

_ __ _

Instantly, the indignation is back.

_ __ _

“Oh, you know do you? So you see a sliver of my apartment, you come into my life for half an hour, and you think you know everything?”

_ __ _

Elio’s brain is in overdrive and he’s shaking for lack of his poison and he’s so _angry_ at his father for coming here and ruining the spell. He’s going to expect things of him now, he might not let this be and Elio _needs_ him to let it be, why couldn’t he have just left well enough alone?

_ __ _

Samuel’s reply is calm, despite Elio’s change in demeanour.

_ __ _

“I don’t think I know the half of it Elio. But I can see that you’re still unhappy. And I can see – and smell – that you think you’ve found a way to make that feel okay.”

_ __ _

The boy looks down, whispering, “…It never feels okay." 

_ __ _

He suddenly feels ultravulnerable as the thought assaults him freshly, with a witness this time.

_ __ _

“Look, Elio... I don’t know how bad this is, or how long it’s been this way but we can… we can get you into a program, or—”

_ __ _

“A fucking _program_ dad?”

_ __ _

“Yes, so someone can finally give you the help you need!”

_ __ _

“I don’t _want_ any help! I don’t want some fucking institution, and you can’t make me. I haven’t committed a crime, you can’t get anyone to _make_ me do anything.”

_ __ _

“This _is_ a crime Elio, what you’re doing to yourself. You’re smarter than this. You're _so much more_ than this.” He implores. 

_ __ _

Suddenly Elio’s anger folds in on itself again, to reveal the tearfulness underneath.

_ __ _

“You’re not making me feel any better.” He says quietly, desolately, looking down at his hands. And then so very quietly, looking up for just a moment, “You think I don’t feel like a piece of shit?”  


_ __ _

“Alcohol is not going to make you feel better Elio,” Samuel says calmly, factually.

_ __ _

“It helps me.” Elio whispers.

_ __ _

“_How_?” Samuel begs, desperately wanting to understand this fresh cloud upon his son’s life.

_ __ _

“It… it just stops everything from being bad all the time. It makes me sad sometimes, but it stops the numbness – it even lets me laugh, sometimes.” He says with a watery semblance of a smile, not realising how tragic that statement is, or how his expression emphasises the tragedy... How low his bar has been set for years. 

_ __ _

“…I’m just trying to get from this moment to the next, and the next, and the one after that.” He seems impossibly more exhausted at the thought.

_ __ _

It hurts Samuel physically to see his son in so much pain. To see him find this situation more bearable than the endless, draining numbness he’s seen... and then something in him suddenly becomes angry – at Elio, at the world, at how robbed he feels of his beautiful son, he doesn’t know. But he’s so _tired_ of feeling helpless in the face of this, and it comes through loud and clear in his angry, frustrated words.

_ __ _

“Well you clearly need _someone_ to help you, because we’ve been letting you take care of getting from this moment to the next for the last six years! And look where it’s gotten you! We’ve left you alone and it’s _never_ helped you! _Look where you are, Elio_!” 

_ __ _

There’s shock, hurt, and then a hardness in Elio’s eyes his father has never seen before. A steely, pissed-off calculation in his eyes as they shift to the left of his father’s head.

_ __ _

In that moment all Elio can think to do is put a wall between himself and his father. To show him how much he’s changed, push him away by shocking him, _disgusting_ him. Impulsively, he steals the open bottle of wine a waiter is carrying by him right out of his hands, and says:

_ __ _

“Do you want to see what _‘helps me’_, dad?” It’s sarcastic and hard, all traces of tearful vulnerability gone. The anger is back up to protect the scared sad boy underneath. 

_ __ _

He proceeds to drink the entire bottle in long pulls, as the waiter, the customers the wine was intended for, and his father look on in shock and dismay. It doesn’t take long for what it is, and no one stops him in their horror. When he's done he wipes the side of his mouth on his already-stained sleeve and places the bottle down on the table with a loud clang. He stands up, apologises curtly to the waiter, and stalks out of the restaurant. 

_ __ _

Sitting for only a few moments in shock at the unexpected theatrical display, Samuel puts money down on the table, apologises profusely to all involved, and races after his son. He’s filled with regret. He knows that his burst of anger was the last thing they needed, that pushing Elio on this is never going to work, only drive him further away. It breaks Samuel’s heart to realise as he chases Elio that he can either have him in pain and making it worse for himself or not at all, until he’s ready to change.

_ __ _

Elio’s walk is unmistakably that of a man vibrating with anger, and as Samuel approaches he can hear him muttering a few choice words to himself under his breath in French. It won’t be long before that wine hits him all at once, he needs to help him get inside.

_ __ _

“Elio, please let me help you.”

_ __ _

“I _told_ you, you can’t help me.” 

_ __ _

“I meant let me help you right now; that’s not going to feel good in a few minutes.”

_ __ _

“It’s fucking nothing dad, I’ll barely feel it.” It’s not quite the truth but he’s angry, and that urge to put up a protective wall and get the worst case scenario over with is still present.

_ __ _

“Well now you’re not making _me_ feel any better.” Samuel exclaims.

_ __ _

“Oh yeah?” Elio stops and turns to face his father, snapping. “I bet this is _really hard_ for _you_.” Then he keeps moving, at speed.

_ __ _

After that Samuel can’t think of anything else to say that won’t make it worse, so he walks in silence with Elio to his apartment, up the stairs and all the way to the door, at which point Elio turns, looks him in the eyes, and slams it in his face, stopping him in his tracks. 

_ __ _

“Elio, I’m not leaving.” His father says to the door, banging his fist against it.

_ __ _

On the other side, the younger man leans against the door, slides down. The alcohol begins to hit him and at first he smiles a small hollow smile and tries to block out the voice outside, pleading. Just him and his messy, _private_ little world, with no one to see him or judge him. 

_ __ _

...But the feeling fades fairly quickly, and without his father directly in front of him, accusing him, trying to control him, judging how he chooses to cope with something he’ll never understand… There’s no one to put an angry mask on for.

_ __ _

His father is one of the few people left in the world to love him... He doesn’t truly want to drive him away forever. He doesn't want to be more alone...

_ __ _

Standing unsteadily, he opens the door, with his head hanging down and his eyes shut tight in shame.

_ __ _

“I’m so sorry, papa.” His father doesn’t waste time pulling him into a long, hard, crushing, _life-giving_ hug.

_ __ _

“I’m sorry I’m such a fuckup, I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment.” He cries into his shoulder, devolving into a sobbing mess, clinging to his father for dear life. 

_ __ _

All of this that he was lashing out against was just a difficult truth, something he could ignore for as long as he didn’t have to face it day to day – what’s another day, let’s not quit today... But with his father here to see everything that’s wrong in his wretched life, to see the jarring alterations which changed in Elio’s world only be degrees, he can’t hold back his sudden, ripping grief.

_ __ _

“I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment, I’m sorry it’s so hard.” He cries.

_ __ _

“You’re not a disappointment Elio, you’re trying so hard, we know you’re trying.” Samuel places a steadying hand on his son’s head, holding him close.

_ __ _

“But I’m not trying. I can’t even try dad, I can’t even _try_! I’m never gonna be anything more than this ‘cause I can’t even _try_, what’s the point?” He’s wailing at this point, confessing everything he’s never said out loud, everything he’s never had anyone to cry to about since it took hold of him.

_ __ _

And he’s only just begun saying what he needs to say. But it is suddenly, urgently apparent that if he doesn’t stop his confession now his stomach is going to stop it for him.

_ __ _

Wrenching himself from his father’s grip he runs to the toilet and mostly gets to the bowl in time. Almost half the litre or more of red wine is in and around the toilet bowl within the next few heaves. Samuel is a little relieved – not all of the alcohol will be absorbed at least.

_ __ _

All he can do is rub Elio’s back as he finishes and flushes the toilet in practiced motions. He keeps sobbing, at one point almost dissolving into laughter at the situation, hysterical laughter, but right on the cusp it crumples in on itself and falls back into the crying.

_ __ _

They stay there for some time before Elio starts to calm and Samuel speaks, softly, sympathetically.

_ __ _

“I’m sorry this has happened to you, Elio. I can’t imagine.”

_ __ _

“You can’t.” He agrees, silent for a few moments. “I can’t remember a time before I felt like this.” He says, exhausted enough that he can’t be defensive, can’t be anything but honest.

_ __ _

“That’s not true.” He says, raising his eyebrows above his faraway eyes, remembering. “I remember that summer so vividly... It doesn’t help though.”

_ __ _

“Have you thought of going to see him? He’s not far away.”

_ __ _

Elio shakes his head vigorously.

_ __ _

“I can’t intrude on his life, papa, he probably has a family." He pauses, considering. "The only thing worse than not seeing him, would be seeing him not want to see me.”

_ __ _

“He still asks about you—”

_ __ _

“Don’t. Please, dad, don’t.”

_ __ _

“Okay, Elio.”

_ __ _

_ __ _

_ __ _

  
“Easy  
Oh, easy  
Burn all your things to make the  
Fight to forget  
Easy

_ __ _

Easy  
Easy  
Pull out your heart to make the  
Being alone  
Easy”

_ __ _

[\- Easy, Son Lux](https://youtu.be/8PIPyPMNnp8?t=138)

_ __ _

_ __ _

_ __ _

  
They stay there for some time, father rubbing a hand over his son’s back in comfort, but eventually they move to the couch, Elio’s head resting sleepily in his father’s lap as he runs a hand through his greasy hair. 

_ __ _

“I can cancel the book events to help, you know,” Sami says, trying not to pay too much attention to the number of bottles around the room - he doesn’t want to know how long it’s been since Elio took out the trash.

_ __ _

“No… don’t.” Elio murmurs. “I don’ want you to.”

_ __ _

“But—”

_ __ _

“Dad this isn’t… serious. It’s not new…. not getting worse.” Only partially a lie, he thinks tiredly. “I don’ want you to put your life on hold for me… it’s only gonna make me feel worse.”

_ __ _

Samuel sighs long, and tired to his bones. “Okay, Elio. If that’s what you want.”

_ __ _

“It is.” He hears, mumbled softly as his son drifts into sleep once again. _Sleep_, Samuel thinks, _I always seem to be losing him to sleep_. Elio would rather be anywhere but in this world and it terrifies him.

_ __ _

Eventually Samuel has to leave for his speaking engagement and Elio has to prepare for work at the bar. They aren’t going to get a chance to see each other again before Samuel has to leave. 

_ __ _

“I’m sorry it went that way dad.”

_ __ _

“Don’t apologise to me Elio. I’d rather I knew than I didn’t… _Please_, don’t lie to us on the phone anymore, okay? Just try to… try not to do anything stupid.”

_ __ _

“…but I _am_ stupid.” Elio mutters, looking down. His father grips his angular face and tilts it up to meet his eyes. 

_ __ _

“Elio Perlman, you are _not stupid_. Stop putting yourself down.”

_ __ _

“That’s what Oliver told me to do.” He smiles sadly. 

_ __ _

“And he was right, wasn’t he?” Samuel smiles with warmth, not wanting their last moments to be upsetting. “Try and eat more, okay?” 

_ __ _

“Mhmm.”

_ __ _

_ __ _

_ __ _

  
“But now my heart is shattered,  
I can’t even try, even when it matters.”

_ __ _

[\- About the Future, Yves Klein Blue](https://youtu.be/NxxQ0e7-iBA?t=165)

_ __ _

_ __ _

_ __ _

  
After work that night Elio is sitting at his table, filled with shame and guilt and alcohol, and he’s writing a note.

_ __ _

_What would I even say to them? _

_ __ _

He starts writing out thoughts in dot points at first, drafting in wobbling letters.

_ __ _

_ __ _

\- _I’m sorry, obviously_  
\- _Forgive me?_  
\- _Don’t blame yourselves. You did your best and it’s been like this for so long, I don’t remember any other way. I promise I’m better off this way. Don’t cry for me, this is better. Can you see that?_

_ __ _

_I’m just so tired. I’ve been ready to sleep for so long. Try to forget about me. Or remember me like I used to be if it helps. Forget what you saw today, dad, it never happened. I never happened, you never had a son._

_ __ _

_ __ _

He pauses his writing… But his father _did_ have a son. And they wouldn’t forget him, and they would cry for him, and they would blame themselves, and it would ruin them like Elio is ruined and it would all be his fault. 

_ __ _

He puts down the pen and cries.

_ __ _

It’s futile to cry but he cries anyway. Might as well do something in the torturous time stretched out before him. He grieves for his life, for the future he might have had, for the light in him long extinguished, for his inability to just _fucking die already_.

_ __ _

He can’t live and he can’t die. He can only keep suffering until there’s no one left to hurt with his death.

_ __ _

_God this is so fucked up_.

_ __ _

He takes his bottle to the couch and turns on the television, the sound of every bad thing happening in the world on the news the score to his drowning, lulling him into a dreamless sleep.

_ __ _

_ __ _

The next day he wakes up on his side vomiting onto the cushion by his head. _That_ could easily have killed him in his sleep but he doesn’t have the energy to care. When eventually he peels himself off the couch he wanders over to the table to polish off the last of his bottle to dull this blinding headache, and finds his messily scrawled note. 

_ __ _

He stares at it for a few endless moments, realising what he’d been doing in writing it before throwing it in the sink like it's on fire. He turns it to mush and washes it down the drain.

_ __ _

It’s gone. It never happened. He was never going to hurt his parents like that. He’s destroyed the evidence and erased it all from time and space.

_ __ _

_It never happened_.

_ __ _

He’s going to need another bottle.

_ __ _

_ __ _

_ __ _

“So please forgive what I have done.  
No, you can’t stay mad at the setting sun.  
Because we all get tired, I mean eventually,  
There is nothing left to do but sleep...”

_ __ _

[\- No Lies, Just Love, Bright Eyes](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwvWWF9l9E0&t=2m4s)

_ __ _

_ __ _

_ __ _

  
Samuel and Annella still call once or twice a week, only now Elio doesn’t try to hide his problems. Not that he broadcasts them to his concerned parents. In some ways it’s better. It’s harder for them now that they can recognise the slurring and occasionally struggling for words for what it is, but they would rather know than not if it’s happening anyway. They do ask him about it, and most of the time he just says it’s the same; not any better, not any worse. It’s usually even true; he’s getting by, sort of. 

”Are you drunk Elio?” 

”Of course I’m fucking drunk, dad. It’s like, eight PM here, what kind of question is that?” 

Sometimes he just sits at his table and imagines his death. It’s fine, he’s just imagining so it’s _not like before_. Maybe he would hang himself. Or he could quite appropriately drink himself to death. He’d probably die in a pool of his own piss and vomit. Not especially dignified, but his dignity is long gone, and death isn’t dignified anyway - he’s fairly certain his grandfather shat himself when he went. Wrists in the bathtub is a bit more stoic or poetic or whatever, but it seems slow and definitely painful. Certainly not eating a bullet if he wants it fast; he wants to leave a viewable body for his parents, so having his face blown off isn’t ideal, especially if he were to fail. God, what if his parents found him? They’d probably call for a week or two before contacting the police to come find his putrefying body next to a note written in the illegible scrawl of a drunk toddler. Probably he’d be so wasted that they’d never know what he was trying to say to them in his last moments, and the not knowing would destroy them more than his absence. Because truthfully he’s been absent for years. He’s already mostly dead. 

He's so ashamed when he wakes up and remembers crying to his father on the phone, but those calls are a terrifyingly literal lifeline on those days. Because he can’t feel that sick, apathetic delight at the thought of something that would hurt hurt his parents, after hearing the love, tenderness, and concern in their voices.

He doesn’t tell them what almost happened, because _it didn't happen_.

It’s not enough but for now it has to be enough.

  
“Your death, it won’t happen to you  
It happens to your family and your friends  


I always wanna die sometimes  
I always wanna die sometimes”

[\- I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes), The 1975](https://youtu.be/hev4tg6ktBw?t=51)


	3. Chapter 3

Months later, Samuel gets an unusual call from Oliver, who wants to know Elio’s address.

“What do you need _that_ for?” Samuel asks, keeping his tone light though his thoughts race. Would it be best that Oliver did or didn’t go see him? Would it help or hurt? …Something needs to change, he knows, but is this too much?

If Oliver doesn’t visit, there's no guarantee anything will change... Surely the only thing worse than risking hurting Elio would be letting everything stay the same?

“I need it because uh… well Micol and I are getting a divorce.”

“Oh my, I’m so sorry to hear that Oliver,” Samuel says genuinely, wondering what happened but too polite to ask. 

“It’s okay, it was mutual. We just… we weren’t right for each other, you know?” he asks rhetorically, before confessing, “I just… I can’t stop thinking about him.” 

“He… never stopped thinking about you,” Samuel says, earnest but cautious.

“So can you, uh… could you give me the address, I really need to go see him.”

Oliver sounds very eager and it’s making Samuel nervous. 

“I _will_ give it to you Oliver, but I’m also going to warn you…”

How does he broach this?

“Elio’s… well he’s not the same as he was when you left.”

“Well I’d be surprised if he was exactly the same person he was six or seven years ago,” he laughs. Samuel lets out a small, uncomfortable laugh for a moment before replying seriously.

“No Oliver, I mean… I know I’ve said that he was excelling in his studies, just a bit melancholy sometimes, but… I’m going to be honest with you, if you’re going to go see him.”

“…What’s wrong?” Oliver’s voice is suddenly concerned. “Is he sick?”

“...In a way,” Samuel gives. “He’s been… to be honest he’s never really been the same since that summer. It was always bad, but it’s gotten much worse since he moved to New York.”

“What do you mean he’s not been the same? Just say it,” Oliver says, worry colouring his tone. “Please,” he adds on the end, to soften his words.

“He would never let us get a formal diagnosis, but… He’s been unhappy for years. He’s a very depressed person.” Sami doesn’t wait for a response. “We've tried to help but when you left he laid in bed for weeks, he couldn’t eat, he couldn’t move. He just slept. He's really struggled, but he always asked me not to share any of this with you so I've tried to stay vague. I hope you can forgive me. When he was at school and university at least he had distractions, but since he's moved he’s just so aimless…" Samuel sighs at the memory of his trip to New York. "I visited him not all that long ago and it was… upsetting. We’ve been worried about him for a long time.”

Oliver seems to be considering, so Samuel gives him time to adjust to this new picture of his son, who had been so different when he knew him best.

On the other side of the ocean Oliver is struggling cognitively to associate something as dead as depression with someone as alive as Elio had been, trying to see how things could progress to that with him for so long... Especially after years of being told that he was doing fine. He's trying to picture this adult Elio, whose life has continued with such difficulty without him. Aimlessness he can see, he supposes, recalling how he used to lounge by the water transposing, but the rest...

_Did I cause this?_ He can’t help but think.

“That’s... something to process.” He replies slowly.

“I know." Samuel replies, understanding. "But please, _do_ process it before you go to him, because there’s more. The rest isn’t mine to tell, but you’ll understand when you see.”

“What am I supposed to do? Will he even want to see me if…" He pauses. "It’s because of me, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not because of you Oliver. It started when you left, but these things don’t just set upon someone and overtake years of their life because of one heartbreak… You mustn’t blame yourself for doing what you thought was best at the time. We’ve never blamed anyone, it’s just… something that happened.” His voice is somewhat resigned, but kind. “As for what you’re supposed to do… just - don’t push him. It won’t work. All you can do is be there for him... It'll mean a lot to him to see you. He's not been loved by anyone the same way since you did.”

“I still do.” Oliver replies. "Love him, that is."

“I know." Samuel replies. A comfortable, thoughtful silence takes over for a few moments before Samuel has a thought.

"Oh, and one more thing – don’t arrive before midday. Elio works nights.” 

It’s strange for Oliver to think of Elio working, to think of him working the kind of job that has night time hours, especially... But he supposes there’s a great deal he doesn’t know about Elio these days.

“Your broad shoulders, my wet tears.  
You're alive, and I’m still here.  
Some half human creature thing,  
Can you bring life to anything?

Take this, it’ll make you better.  
Though eventually you’ll die…  
If you don't love me, don't tell me,  
I've never asked who and I’ll never ask why.

…

Just looking for a protector,  
God never reached out in time.  
This love, that is the saviour,  
That ain't no love of mine.

My love, it kills me slowly,  
Slowly I could die…  
And when she sleeps she hears the blues,  
Sees shades of black and white.”

[\- Silk, Wolf Alice](https://youtu.be/wTsN7uugtfg?t=193)

  
Oliver arrives outside Elio’s door at 1:15pm on a Thursday. He braces himself and knocks loudly.

He hears a long, irritated groan and a thump, followed by the clanking of glass against glass and a pained grunt. After a few moments of silence the door opens with a familiar yet changed voice groggily grumbling.

“_God_, Victoria, I told you I’d have the _fucking rent_ by—”

It’s Elio.

Elio is standing impossibly before him. 

_His_ Elio. 

His _Oliver_. 

Him_self_, and… 

Elio looks like shit. He’s standing with a dumb look of shock frozen on his face. His _tired_ face. The circles around his eyes are dark and pronounced. His jaw is much more angular than Oliver remembers and his cheeks are somewhere between chiselled and caved in. His hair is longer, unwashed. It’s hard to see under his loose, hole-riddled clothing but he seems impossibly thinner – not the slimness of youth but something more unhealthy. 

He's still so beautiful to Oliver though. 

He’s cataloguing changes like a robot because his brain isn’t computing the complexities of human emotion right now. Is he taller? He might be taller. He’s talking.

“—are you doing here?” There’s a sinking sound to his voice. Like a child caught doing something they shouldn’t be, embarrassed, and frightened that mother has come home early.

“_Elio_…” Oliver breathes. 

“Oliver.” Elio states, his dread coming through loud and clear, face like a deer in the headlights.

“I’m here!” Oliver says, laughing slightly giddily.

“You’re here.” Elio says bluntly, as though trying to comprehend what’s happening and how. 

“What… about your wife?” He asks with a frown, clearly still dazed and confused.

“It’s a long… can I come in?” Oliver cranes his head to look into the apartment behind Elio, and in that moment Elio is supremely grateful that he had a rare burst of energy days before and gave it a reasonable clean. Nothing fancy but his clothes are washed and in one pile, and the usual horde of empty bottles which would give up the game immediately are in the trash on the street. 

The one thing Elio couldn’t have cleaned away is the attractive shirtless man in the kitchen looking over at Oliver curiously, holding a mug of coffee. 

“Okay, I can see that this is something momentous and private.” The man says with good-natured humour. “I’ll give you two some space.” The stranger places his coffee down and grabs his shirt off the stained couch. He picks up his shoes and walks towards the door quickly, brushing past Elio with a wink and a “See you tonight”, before disappearing down the hall. 

Elio gestures shakily for Oliver to come in, a million thoughts visibly going through his head as he shuts the door.

“Is he your boyfriend?” Oliver asks immediately as he sits down on the couch, unable to hold the question in while they exchange pleasantries. Elio furrows his brow as he heads to the small kitchenette.

“Who, Johnnie? No, he’s just… we just fuck around sometimes,” he says dismissively. 

_How different his life must be to how mine has been_, Oliver thinks. 

After a few moments of silence Elio asks if Oliver wants coffee. “They don’t have good Italian coffee here but it’s still coffee.”

“Sure.” Oliver replies, distracted by taking in his surroundings. Sparse furnishings, mysterious stains dotting the place, books haphazardly piled in a corner… Almost no sign of the artful decoration, the youthful elegance, the organised chaos of his old room in Italy. It’s so utilitarianly American, and so far from the distinct Europeanness of the old villa. The smell is a faint, but unmistakable mixture of unwash, must, and something that reminds Oliver of… a bar? He works nights, maybe at a bar? 

The rest a depressed disposition would explain, Oliver supposes – overall it’s much less messy than he expected from Samuel’s warning words, but the precocious Elio that Oliver had once known would still never have deigned to live in a space like this. 

Oliver wonders what else about him has changed. 

He hears the clank of glass against glass as Elio prepares the coffee, taking a long drink from his mug before bringing the cups over to the couch and sitting down next to Oliver. They stare at one another for a moment with unreadable expressions before Elio looks away and brings a hand up to roughly push his long dirty hair out of his face.

“So what are you doing here?” Elio asks, trying to pretend this is all normal.

Oliver doesn’t answer his question, staring at him, studying him for a few seconds before asking, “_How are you_?”, earnestly. He can immediately see that this isn’t a simple question to have asked - is in fact one of the more painful ones he could have asked. Elio’s silent, pained stare through tired eyes tells him what he needs to know. He looks away again.

“I don’t really want to talk about me right now.” He says honestly, before taking another few long pulls from his coffee with shaking hands. Oliver sips his – Elio’s right, it’s bad coffee. Mafalda wouldn’t have it, Oliver thinks, smiling a little at the thought. Elio, spying this, gives a tender, tentative smile as well, asking “What are you smiling about?”

“I was thinking about how upset Mafalda would be about this coffee.” He says, his smile widening, expecting Elio to return it, maybe huff out a laugh. But he doesn’t. Instead his small smile fades, and he looks down. 

“What are you doing here, Oliver?” Elio meets his gaze once more.

He doesn’t mince words.

“Micol and I are separating.” 

He can’t quite read the expression on Elio’s face. Is it hopeful, furrowed, thoughtful, scared, confused? It is all of these things and none of them.

“I suppose I should say I’m sorry.” He settles on, finally.

“I’m not.” Oliver replies. “We both wanted it. We knew it was over for a long time. We weren’t right together, never were. It was just… our families.” He finishes simply.

“And you’re here to…?” There’s something between hope and dread on Elio’s face, which Oliver can’t quite decipher.

“I’m here to…” He considers for a moment. “I’m here for as much or as little of you as you’re willing to give me.” He says honestly. “I know things are different. Your dad told me.” 

A look of suspicion colours Elio’s expression now, his body going rigid. 

“What did he tell you?” 

Oliver isn’t about to start this dishonestly, so he tells him the truth.

“That you’d never talk to anyone, or get a formal assessment, but that you’ve been… That you’ve been unhappy, for a long time. Not the same.”

Elio huffs, a strange look of relief on his face followed by a scowl.

“Just like him to share.” He mutters before turning to meet Oliver’s eyes. “I mean, I won’t say it’s been easy, but he’s exaggerating. I finished school, I got my degree, I moved away… I’m doing fine.”

“…You don’t seem fine.” Oliver says gently, leaning closer to Elio. 

“You woke me up, I work nights. You just… you caught me on a bad day.” Elio lies, his tone not without humour.

“Sorry.” Oliver says sheepishly, knowing that Elio isn’t telling the whole truth but not wanting to wade into unpleasant territory so quickly. 

“I’ve missed you.” He says gently, and then with more volume. “_God_, I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too, I just… why did you never _call_?” Elio can’t keep the pain and hurt out of his voice. Oliver has wounded him. It hurts him to hear the pain, mirroring his own, knowing that he is the cause of both.

“It felt unfair to disturb you.” He replies. “It felt like the right thing to do was to let you move on cleanly and just hoard my memories. I just thought I should leave well enough alone to avoid opening old wounds.”

“…It was never going to be _clean_, Oliver.” Regret and despair are clear in the boy’s voice.

“I know that now, but… I don’t know, I was just trying to do what I thought was right. And I was wrong.” He finishes simply. There’s silence for a few moments before Elio speaks.

“You’re an idiot.” He says it plainly, factually, with a shrug, feeling strangely like he’s re-inhabiting his old bones for a moment. 

Oliver lets out a laugh. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“I am right.” He agrees. “…But you’re _here_ now.” There’s a touch of breathless reverence in his voice.

“I’m here.”

“And you’re not going away again?” The tremor in his voice is unmistakable.

“Not unless you want me to.”

They stare at each other for a few moments, contemplating how miraculous it all is, before Elio stands up. 

“You should put your things in the bedroom.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Oliver grins, gathering his bags and heading towards the only other room than the bathroom. Elio seizes his chance to level out from the night before, away from Oliver’s seeking gaze. 

He darts to the kitchen quickly to take several long pulls from the bottle of whisky on the counter before placing it under the sink. He put some in his coffee before but not enough to make a decent dent with his tolerance. He rinses his mouth in the sink in hopes Oliver won’t smell it on his breath before he heads to the bedroom, eager for the drink to hit so he can stop his routine morning – afternoon – shaking and sweating.  


In the bedroom he stops Oliver in his ministrations, pulling the older man to face him. He still has that giddy smile on his face and it takes Elio’s breath away. He pulls the older man in closer, placing his arms around him and melting into an embrace. They stand there swaying from side to side for a moment, Elio breathing in Oliver’s familiar scent and Oliver sadly but affectionately thinking about how he should wash Elio’s hair for him later.

He just wants to help Elio to escape whatever emotional hole has him living this way when he’s capable of so much more.

“I can’t believe you’re here.” Elio breathes. 

“Me either.”

“Let’s just stay like this forever.”

“Okay.” Oliver says simply, guiding them to the bed – the sheets clearly haven’t been washed in a long, long time but it doesn’t bother him. They curl up together, Elio safe in Oliver’s arms, impossibly, after so long. The younger man is quick to drift off as the alcohol takes effect - as ever since all this started - but Oliver doesn’t mind lying awake as long as Elio is there. 

He could never be bored with Elio there.

He takes the moment to truly study the boy-cum-man in his arms, who will always be a boy to him; he notes the shadows around his eyes that weren’t there before, the gauntness of his face in contrast with his stronger jawline, the appearance of affliction about him. 

It’s not right. It’s so far from the youthful glow of the Elio he knew so many years ago... They had known each other so well that summer, and perhaps he doesn’t know this Elio now. 

But _god_, he wants to.

“Penniless and tired, with your hair grown long,  
I was looking at you there and your face looked wrong.  
Memory is a fickle siren song…  
I didn't understand.

In the gentle light, as the morning nears  
You don't say a single word of the last two years.  
Where you were when you reached the frontier…  
I didn't understand, no.”

[\- He Doesn't Know Why, Fleet Foxes](https://youtu.be/VGqfgsMMfcI?t=11)


	4. Chapter 4

When Elio wakes up, still in Oliver’s arms, it’s almost 4pm – precisely when he’s supposed to start work at the bar. Eyes widening at the sight of the clock on his bedside table he jolts, suddenly alert. Oliver must have been dozing lightly himself because he makes a humming noise and slowly, muzzily removes his arms to rub his eyes. Immediately Elio is up, pulling on the black slacks he wears to work – his white dress shirt will just have to be the crumpled one on the floor, stained from last night – it wouldn’t be the first time, and no one can see his front from where he sits anyway. Oliver is sitting up in bed now.

“Are you late?” He asks.

“I’m about to be.” Elio replies tensely, hopping as he slides on his sleek work shoes. He can put his tie and suspenders on during the walk – run – over. He turns to face Oliver before rushing out the door. 

“I wish I could talk more but I can’t start being late, I can’t lose this job.” (_They put up with me drinking all of their booze because they know I have a problem_). “There’s no food in, you’ll have to order in or go out.”

Oliver, who can hear the stress in Elio’s voice, places his hands on his shoulders reassuringly. “It’s fine, I’ll be here when you get back, just go.”

Elio shoots him a quick smile and bolts. As he goes Oliver can’t help but wonder if there’s still some of the old Elio in the way he darts away… the last time he saw him in such a rush it was to meet Marzia for clumsy teenage sex though, and now this Elio has a job to rush to, to pay for his apartment, in New York. He is excited to know this Elio, transformed into a fully-fledged adult while he wasn't looking.

Elio makes it to the bar in record time, his boss waving off his lateness – he likes Elio, and no one is in yet. Thankfully, that gives him some time to level out again behind the bar. Johnnie smiles at him as he arrives.

“Ready to fuel up for the night?” 

Johnathan knows that Elio isn’t okay. It’s unspoken between them that Johnnie knows Elio has a problem and that he’s rarely drinking for fun, but he doesn’t pester him about it and he doesn’t act guilty. Elio is eternally grateful for that. It makes it all so much easier. Johnnie is a very easy person to be around because he accepts that most of life is shit, and doesn’t judge how other people choose to get from day to day dealing with that - besides, he drinks just as much as Elio does on work nights, and honestly, around here who doesn’t have an inadvisable vice? Johnnie has a sunnier disposition but he understands how Elio feels and why he does what he does, and he knows all he can do is not make it harder.

“Yep.” Elio replies, immediately downing the neat drink Johnnie is holding out for him and handing the glass back. “Ended up going back to sleep, just woke up.”

“Were you perchance in bed with that deliciously tall, delightfully handsome man I left you with?” He pours another, Elio downs another.

Elio huffs a laugh. “I was, but it was all very PG.”

“That’s disappointing.” Johnnie grins, pouring a triple, which Elio will sip at over the coming hours at the piano before his break. “Let me know if you guys ever want a third party,” he ribs.

“Well thank you for the offer Johnathan, but I don’t think he’s the type.”

“Pity,” He sighs wistfully, “I suppose this means we can’t mess around anymore.”

“Like you’re gonna find it hard to find a another friend who wants benefits.” Elio huffs before abruptly becoming serious and opening up a little, to the closest he’s come to a confidante since moving to New York. 

“…He’s said he’s going to stay, but I can’t— I can’t get my hopes up.” The tempered fear is clear in his voice.

“Is he the one that started you know – everything?” He asks, diplomatically sidestepping naming ‘everything’. 

“He is,” Elio starts, and he feels like he might be about to say more - though he’s not sure what - but at that moment the first patrons enter the space. He takes his tumbler and heads to his platform, calling out for requests to the large group who have just entered.

As he plays, it’s different. Less of the drudgery of trying to play jaunty, happy tunes when he feels anything but, and more… He's not sure. It’s like there’s always been a part of him playing just for Oliver, only now it’s playing with the joy of renewal rather than in unspoken mourning. It’s not laughing, singing joy, but it’s something genuine he’s not felt in years. It’s like there’s light touching places in his mind that have been left in the dark since Oliver left. The cobwebs are still there, the sheets still cover everything… but there’s _light_. 

On his break he and Johnnie toast stupid fancy cocktails to Oliver’s return and Elio smiles a real smile that reaches his eyes.

“This guy must really be something.” Johnnie observes, a thoughtful look in his happy eyes. “I’ve never seen you play like that, smile like this... You seem happier.” And Johnnie is clearly happy for him.

“He _is_ really something.” Elio says slowly, sipping his drink and still grinning with alcohol-wet eyes. “He’s so observant of people, and the world; he understands things. He knows secret things about me without me having to tell him - things I think I’ve diligently hidden away… He’s so smart. He’s a professor – or at least he was – and he’s written books and shaped minds and he’s got that golden hair, golden face, golden smile…”

“Stop it, you’re making me jealous, he makes you talk in poetry.” Johnnie laughs before demurring. “...If he’s so observant though… does he know about, y'know?”

“My dad told him I’ve been struggling, been… down, I guess, but not about this.” Elio holds up his drink, grateful as he references it that Johnnie understands how he can talk about his consuming need while also genuinely light-heartedly drinking to celebrate.

“He’s going to figure it out eventually.” Johnnie says with kindness. “Or if he doesn’t, you’re going to tell him eventually, from what you’ve said about your closeness.”

“Yeah...” Elio sighs. “Not yet, though,” he bargains, “I just want some time, before… I’m scared he’s going to want me to change before I’m ready, and I just want to savour this time before… in case he leaves me again.” His mood is a little soured at the thought, but nothing a sympathetic smile and another clinking of glasses can’t eventually set right again – after all, at least for now Oliver is back! 

They down a few more extravagant drinks before Elio heads back to the piano, and then another few once the bar is closed before going their separate ways. 

“Go back t’your perfect man.” Johnnie urges with a giggle, sending Elio on his way.

It’s nearly 4am when Oliver hears Elio crashing back into the apartment. He grins a little, sleepily visualising what he’s hearing. 

The keys jangle near the door, drop, a “_fuck_!” travels through the door. The door opens, slams shut. He’s reminded of when the door slammed the night they first slept together and how amusing he thought Elio’s reaction was then, but the thought is a little ruined by the sound of the same boy running to throw up loudly and painfully into the sink. 

Though even that reminds Oliver nostalgically of their Roman triste. 

He hears the younger man brush his teeth – thank god, Oliver wants to cuddle – and then shuck off his shoes, pants, and shirt before crashing into the bed, laughing at Oliver’s groan when his angular body lands on top of him on the freshly-changed sheets.

“Bet y’re awake now.” He giggles, the edges of his words soft with drink.

“God, what time is it?” He grunts out.

“Dunno.” Elio sighs. “Late. Early… honey, I’m home.” He jokes, lamely with a grin in his voice.

“You’re drunk.” Oliver accuses lightly, pulling him close and enjoying the feeling of Elio being spread out on his chest, where he should be. 

“Mm, I am. ‘S nice. Drinks’re free for the pianist.” 

“Are there any left? You smell like a bar.” He jokes, sniffing exaggeratedly. 

“Heyy.” Elio lifts his head and slaps his chest with an intoxicated grin. “I _work_ at a bar asshole, ‘m allowed.”

“…I heard vomiting, are you okay?” The older man’s concern comes through suddenly.

“Unf,” Elio smashes his head back down onto Oliver’s chest with a huff. “Yes, ‘m fine, _dad_.”

“Ugh, go to sleep, you lush.” 

He’s not forgetting the harsh vomiting but Oliver loves how they seem to fall into ease with each other, even after so long.

“Mmm, I think I will.” The boy murmurs, cuddling up around Oliver like an octopus and drifting off. Oliver follows suit shortly after.

Oliver awakens again at about 9am, enjoying time to take in where he is, to recognise that he’s here. He’s in _Elio’s_ apartment, because he’s going to be in _Elio’s_ life again. He can't believe his luck.  


He tries to keep the peaceful moment for as long as possible but eventually, after about an hour, his bladder is protesting loudly and he’s pretty unpleasantly doused in Elio’s distinctly hangover-scented sweat. He wants to let the sweetly sleeping boy continue his dreams, but he needs to get up and he’s certain that an ibuprofen and a shared bath won’t go unappreciated if what he heard last night is anything to go by.

“Elio.” He whispers, shaking the boy’s shoulder. He receives a long groan in return, and an arm coming up weakly to swat at him. He huffs a laugh and shakes his shoulder again.

“Elio, I’ve got to get up or I’m going to piss in your bed.”

“Unf, juss go, wouldn’t be th’ firss time.” He mumbles as he awakens, in a croaky voice.

“What?” Oliver laughs disbelievingly, raising his eyebrows. “Is there a story there?”

“Nuh uh.” Elio denies, raising his head as he wakes up more and rolling over onto his back away from Oliver. Freed, Oliver removes his sweat-soaked shirt and heads to the kitchen, placing a glass of water on the counter and digging around for ibuprofen, leaving two capsules next to the glass. Elio is sitting hunched on the edge of the bed when Oliver comes in to tell him relief is waiting for him in the kitchen. But the words die in his throat as he takes in Elio’s near-naked body for the first time in six years.

He was always of a slender build but this is something different. The sight of his vertebrae, as easily countable as his protruding ribs, the frightening, birdlike fragility of his jutting shoulder blades…  


Something is definitely wrong, but what? Does he not want to eat, does he not remember to eat, can he just not afford to? Is it just too much effort most days? 

Oliver feels suddenly out of his depth, but he’s abruptly shaken from of his thoughts by Elio turning to him, appearing every bit as hungover as he ought to be.

“I’m gonna run us a bath; you’re filthy.” Oliver says, trying to keep his tone light.

“As long as I don’t have to do anything.” Elio grins tiredly through the curtain of his long, dirty hair. Oliver returns the smile and heads to the bathroom to relieve himself and figure out the faucets.

As soon as he leaves the room Elio is up and in the kitchenette, ignoring his fatigue to take a bottle from underneath the sink and take a few long swigs, fighting his tolerance to bring him back to life. He’s supremely grateful that he got his vomiting out of the way the night before – he should know better than to drink cocktails by now. He pours some liquid into his flask and into the opaque water bottle he takes out with him when he knows he’ll be out for a while, and then places the glass bottle back, throwing the two pills in the trash – they won’t help him like old fashioned hair-of-the-dog will.

It’s a relief to feel his body calm at just knowing that the alcohol is on its way to save him from this sweating, shaking state. He stealthily slides the flask into the back pocket of a pair of jeans in his room and heads into the en suite bathroom feeling needy and clingy, hugging Oliver from behind. He feels a laugh rumble through the man’s still-sculpted chest and presses a kiss onto his shoulder blade, marvelling at how easy this all feels. It’s how it should have been – could have been – this whole terrible time, but he can’t think on that for long.

“Ready?” Oliver asks, turning around and removing his pants and underwear. _He’s still so beautiful,_ Elio thinks. _Not like me…_ But he quashes the thought before it can upset him further – who cares about him, when Oliver is here. He nods and Oliver removes his underwear for him. He gets in the tub gracefully and gestures for Elio to join him, laying down and positioning the smaller man between his legs. Elio just wants to lie there and cuddle but Oliver begins the ministrations of washing his hair, running his fingers carefully through the knots.

“Sorry,” Elio apologises, “My hair is probably gross. I wear it back with a band at work, so I don’t need to wash it a lot.” 

“Elio, nothing about you is ever going to be gross to me.” 

The boy melts at the reassurance, not used to having such kind words to counteract his fears. Johnnie is a friend and they fuck around, but Elio knows ultimately he can’t really lean on him for the same kind of unconditional love and support that comes from someone you’ve truly given your body and soul to. 

The more Elio thinks about it the more he realises just how lonely he's been these past few years, and especially in New York. 

The alcohol is hitting him and Oliver doesn’t know, and he’s being so gentle and _tender_, and suddenly Elio just wants to cry. Oliver must see him breathing strangely, trying to hold it in, because he stops his actions to lean forward, trying to see Elio’s face.

“What’s wrong?” He asks tenderly. The boy turns away, shielding his pinched expression. “Please, don’t hide from me.” Oliver pleads. "What's wrong?"

Elio turns to face him, revealing a quivering lip and a face growing blotchy and immediately confessing to what he'd denied the day before.

“I’m sorry, it’s just… everything has been so hard for so long and suddenly you’re here and it’s so embarrassing and you’re just being so _nice_ about everything, and—” 

He can’t quite finish explaining what he’s feeling so he just turns away and buries his face in his hands, unable to hold a few tears back through the words. Oliver pulls him closer as he breathes through it, pressing kisses into his neck as the boy trembles in his arms, the scene echoing the moment in Italy when Oliver held the same boy in his arms as he cried after Oliver found the peach and revelled in the act it evidenced. 

How similar, and yet how much things have changed, Oliver thinks as the image of a struggling, adult Elio that Samuel gave him begins to feel more real.

“Niceness has nothing to do with it.” He says truthfully, the _I love you, I’ve always loved you_, going unsaid. It just doesn’t feel like the right moment to say it aloud for the first time. 

"How did you keep it together?" Elio asks through little near-sobs, almost giving up the game and confessing his affliction right then and there.

"...I had to." Oliver murmurs, his own pain lesser, but clear in his words.

He holds Elio against his chest in the warm water until he feels the sleep-deprived boy starting to fall back asleep, rousing him by pushing him forwards and starting the process of washing his hair. Elio hums softly as Oliver begins massaging the shampoo into his long, dirty tresses. The foam quickly turns a slightly grey colour and Oliver wonders without judgement how long it’s really been since Elio found the will to do something as simple as wash his hair. 

They’re comfortably silent as Oliver washes the suds out with the detachable shower head and repeats the process with the conditioner, Elio hugging his knees to his chest.  


A surge of protectiveness overwhelms Oliver. He’s always felt protective of Elio to an extent, but this vulnerability, this weakness… 

In some ways Elio seems stronger than he was before, in that he knows how to live and work in the world outside of his parents’ protection, but… in other ways he seems infinitely more fragile. 

He’s less self-assured than he used to be, Oliver thinks. He values himself less. He seems simultaneously like he could crumble at the smallest gesture of kindness, and like he would simply blink in tacit agreement at the hurling of the worst insults. He supposes there was a shadow of that in the Elio of Crema, who put himself down so others wouldn’t and cried when Oliver showed him how he loved and accepted him by eating that peach… but all Oliver can think is that he should have been here to protect him, and prevented it from turning into this.

That, and how unquestioningly willing he is to put his life on hold to pursue this life with Elio and make everything he's ruined better.

Eventually they stand and Oliver soaps them both up before turning on the shower head and rinsing them. He gets out first, wrapping a towel around his waist before turning to help Elio out of the bath and drying him off, carefully and gently.

“Thank you, for taking care of me.” Elio says, standing with the towel where Oliver has placed it around his shoulders. 

The honesty in his eyes – how truly touched he is to be taken care of in such a simple way – breaks Oliver’s heart... Elio deserves the world; how dare he allow it not to be given to him? 

He can’t find his words yet, so he answers with a soft kiss; their first on the mouth in six years. It is short, and sweet, with Oliver holding Elio’s fine-boned face in his hands and looking into his eyes afterwards.

“You don’t need to thank me. I want to make you feel better.” The gentleness in his words still hurts Elio’s heart but he’s too tired to cry again, so he contents himself with nuzzling into one of the big, strong hands holding his sunken cheeks.

“Once we get dressed I’ll make us some breakfast.”

“I don’t feel well, I don’t know if I can keep anything down.” Elio mumbles.

“Did you eat at work last night?”

“No. My hands were busy.” He jokes, rolling his eyes.

“You didn’t eat all day Elio, it’s no wonder you were so drunk when you got back.” Oliver chastises with a huff of laughter.

“It happens.” Elio shrugs dismissively, looking away like he sometimes does when he’s uncomfortable with the direction of a conversation.

Oliver is abruptly serious again in response, not letting it go. 

“…Does that happen a lot? I mean, you said there’s no food here, and you’re...” In lieu of directly saying how fragile his lover has become Oliver runs his fingers delicately over the boy’s ribs, his jutting jaw.

“I’m sorry, I know I don’t look good—” 

“That’s not what I’m getting at, at all, Elio,” Oliver interrupts with a patient sigh. “I’m just worried, that’s all. I just want to know what’s going on.” The line between Oliver’s concerned brows tells Elio of his honesty. “I don’t want any secrets. I want to know everything about you I’ve missed these past years.”  


”I don’t want you to worry about me,” Elio murmurs, embarrassed. 

“Well... you’re making it kind of hard,” Oliver replies softly. 

Elio knows Oliver doesn’t want to judge him, isn’t asking in order to chastise him or tut at him, but he’s still quiet when he answers, because he’s embarrassed that something as simple as getting enough food in a day can be so difficult.

“I don’t know, sometimes I just forget, sometimes there’s just nothing in and I can’t find the energy…” He looks down at his hands, fiddling and leaving out that sometimes he doesn’t have the money for food if he also wants to buy alcohol, and he _needs_ to do that. Oliver stills his hands, holding them in his own.

“Well, I’m here to remind you now.” He says, kindly, holding Elio’s gaze in a way that tells him he understands why it’s happened but that he isn’t going to allow it to continue. He cares about his lover’s health, and if Elio isn’t going to take care of it, he is. Elio sighs, dreading the thought of food in the moment, but it’s a fair trade to have Oliver in his life so he nods.

  
“She left a week to roam,  
Your protector’s coming home.  
Keep your secrets with you, girl.  
Safe from the outside world…

You walk along the stream,  
Your head caught in a waking dream.  
Your protector’s coming home.  
Coming home…”

[\- Your Protector, Fleet Foxes](https://youtu.be/McvrkKnZji8?t=18)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Suicidal themes again

At first it’s happiness. 

Oliver worries about the changes he observes in Elio of course, but takes comfort in knowing he’s there to soothe the hurt now. He even entertains the thought that maybe Elio is right and his father was exaggerating on the phone. 

He doesn’t mind Elio coming home from the bar drunk, reasoning in his mind that it’s normal for twenty-something bar workers to have fun on the job. 

The leeway to let loose a few nights a week helps Elio keep it all in check on the other days. 

Keeping up the spell, Elio manages to sneak his bottles in and out one way or another, stashing them in places he prays Oliver won’t accidentally stumble upon them. The active thought and movement of finding ways to hide his problem from Oliver even helps with lifting the cloud over his life for a while. He maintains the bliss by eating more regularly, sleeping at more appropriate times, buying mouth rinse to wash away the alcohol on his breath after stealing deep swigs in the bathroom while Oliver works on his new book in the living room. 

For a while it’s good. 

For a while it’s fantastic, because neither of them can believe it’s actually happening after mythologising one another for so long. At first they go for strolls in the park, they read to each other, they curl up on the couch and ignore a movie to make out. 

At first the joy of Oliver being back is enough that Elio is only drinking enough to stay level, except at the bar where he really can’t help himself. 

But he feels like he’s living on borrowed time. He feels like Oliver will leave him as soon as he knows the whole truth, and go to shine his light on someone else. Oliver says he wants to know all of him and that nothing about Elio will ever be gross to him but the boy can't help but feel he wouldn't say that if he knew about this disgusting thing he keeps locked up inside of him. 

It’s for this reason that he keeps his job at the warehouse even though he doesn’t need it with Oliver covering half of the rent and most of the food. He doesn’t want to have to find another job when Oliver leaves him again. 

Eventually the stress of trying to hide his habit sours his time with Oliver, the lie between them eating away at him. It’s hard hiding a problem from someone who loves you, knows you, lives in a small apartment with you, he thinks. 

_Figure it out, just figure it out_, he begs silently, despite doing his best to prevent just that. _I can’t tell you but I need you to ask me, just ask me about it and I’ll spill my guts to you but I can’t tell you, just figure it out, figure it out_…  


He starts to be riskier with it as the need arises, drinking not just enough to stop the shaking but enough to make everything fuzzy again; enough to forget this rift he’s created between them when they should be so close. He’s gotten pretty good at hiding the slurring and such over time but even so he senses the older man can tell something is wrong.

At first Oliver supposes it’s just the numbness of depression creeping back in when Elio doesn’t wash his hair or his clothes. He doesn’t comment on the smell but rather washes them for him with patience and compassion, hoping his gentle touch will help. He thinks it must just be returning to his difficult normal from a honeymoon period when Elio spends hours curled up on the couch dozing or blinking into the corner with tired eyes, waiting to fall back asleep, so he leaves him be, not wanting to pester Elio when he's going through something already. 

Uneasy silence descends upon the space whenever Oliver works on his book with Elio on the couch, scarcely moving except to go into the bathroom. Sometimes Oliver turns on the radio to fill the silence; he knows something has fundamentally changed when _their_ song from the club in Crema comes on, and Elio barely stirs, except perhaps to curl up a little tighter. 

Every now and again he’ll get up to stretch his legs and find Elio in silent tears on the couch. He rushes over to hold him and ask what’s wrong but he never gets an answer, just a shaking head and clutching hands. 

“Elio please, _please_ get help... Let me call someone, please...” 

”No, just... just hold me? Please?”

He understands that these strange behaviours are not strange for very depressed people – and he’s not wrong – but he doesn’t know the half of it. 

He knows something will have to change - Elio can’t keep going on like this. 

  
“And I sat watching a flower  
As it was withering…  
I was embarrassed by  
Its honesty.

‘Cause I’d prefer to be remembered  
As a smiling face,  
Not this fucking wreck  
That’s taken its place…”

[\- No Lies, Just Love, Bright Eyes](https://youtu.be/SwvWWF9l9E0?t=81)

  
It happens when he’s doing the dishes alone, again, while Elio sleeps the day away in their bed. He got home from the warehouse where Oliver cannot picture him at about 4am so it makes sense for him to still be asleep at midday he supposes. 

Feeling productive, the older man pads into the bedroom and grabs Elio’s black water bottle from the ground next to him – he’s never seen him wash it before taking it out for his shift the past few weeks so it must need a good clean. 

But upon opening the bottle and pouring its sharp-smelling amber contents down the drain, it’s clear that it’s not a water bottle at all. The sour scent of cheap whisky is unmistakable as Oliver stares into the sink, forced to connect dots his mind has refused to consciously connect until now. 

It’s ultimately not really a revelation. 

He knew, somewhere, that something like this had to be wrong. The sweating, the sneaking off to other rooms all the time, that distinctive scent in the morning... The barrier between them, even standing naked before one another. 

Oliver already knew Elio was probably drinking more than was good for him at the bar and in the evenings but this is obviously something different... He just didn’t want his quiet thoughts to be correct, wanted it to be entirely something Elio couldn’t help. He wanted to put this discovery off as long as possible, perhaps selfishly. 

For a moment there's a flash of relief, because at least now he knows what's kept things from being transparent between them the way it used to be, but it doesn't last long. 

Oliver sighs and takes the bottle with him to the table, placing it down in front of him and rubbing his eyes, trying to figure out his next move. Does he demand an explanation, take the tough love approach? No, it’ll never work with Elio. Samuel told him that there was more and not to push, just to be there for him. He understands now. He should call him. 

First he goes about the apartment, quietly, finding hiding places. There’s a flask in the pocket of Elio’s winter coat and another in a pair of jeans, another between two couch cushions. A bottle in the bathroom at the back of the cupboard, one at the bottom of the dresser, two more under the sink and bed, all in addition to the ones Oliver had already known about – the fancy whiskies and wines sitting openly and acceptably on the bench. 

He must have stocked up to make it easier to find times and places to sneak drinks. 

He sits the collection alongside those in the kitchen, not wanting to present Elio with the kind of dramatic intervention he knows the boy will lash out at, will shy away from. He predicts an evolution of the younger Elio’s slightly childish tendency to run away, to push away even well-meaning people harshly rather than be vulnerable or embarrassed. He needs to do this carefully. 

Sighing, Oliver takes a moment to kneel next to the bed and study his Elio’s face. He’s out cold, his deep breaths pushing and pulling a lock of hair gently through the air as he sleeps. Something difficult swells in Oliver’s chest as he observes the blank ease of sleep relaxing Elio’s features as he dreams the day away once again. Perhaps mourning for the complicated road ahead, perhaps grief that things are even worse than he thought... perhaps he’s just trying to put Elio and alcoholism in the same sentence in his mind.

’Elio Perlman is an alcoholic.’ No, ‘Elio Perlman has a problem with alcohol.’

It doesn’t feel right. 

The Elio he knew would never have come to this, and yet he has because this _is_ the Elio he knew, and still the one he loves. He supposes that desperation will make even the brightest souls sink to terrible lows...

It’s not right... But he supposes depression doesn’t care about European niceties or artfulness. It doesn’t discriminate. It just destroys. He’s learned that over his time here.

He sighs again and rises - this isn’t useful. 

Elio could be up in hours or at any minute, so Oliver heads out into the hall and sits in the stairwell to make his call, not wanting to risk him overhearing. It’ll be early in Crema, but he doesn’t care.

“Pronto.”

“So he drinks.” Straight to the point. “That’s what wasn’t yours to tell me.” He hears a long sigh on the other end, can picture Samuel Perlman taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose in preparation for the conversation they’re about to have.

“I was wondering how long it would take him to slip up.”

“How long have you known?” Oliver tries to keep his voice sounding anything but accusatory, because truly, he doesn’t blame Samuel. 

He doesn’t know what he thinks or who he blames, other than himself.

“Not long, probably less than six months.”

“You’ve known for _months_? How long has this been going on?” He can’t keep his outrage out of his tone, the low, quiet rage at a situation he can’t help but feel personally responsible for; he said he didn’t want to ruin Elio and yet here they are anyway, and he can’t help but feel like the catalyst for it all. 

“I don’t know how long honestly, Oliver. It could be a year, it could be less or more. Though it seemed like he’d been at it for a long while when I visited.”

Oliver can’t help but sigh in frustration, desperation in his soft voice. “Why haven’t you made him do something about this?”

“Come on, Oliver. We could never control him. He’s an adult, we can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do. He values his autonomy too much to co-operate, it would never work unless he wanted to…” He trails off before finishing with a simple truth. “He’ll only change when he’s ready to.”

A ragged breath escapes Oliver despite Samuel’s words, a tremor in his voice. 

“I don’t know how to help him. At first it was okay - and he still makes himself work because he has to - but now he can barely eat anything, can barely stay awake, can barely even keep his body clean unless I’m there to remind him. I don’t know what to do; what can I _do_, Sam?” 

Oliver isn’t used to being so exposed, even with Samuel Perlman, who was more of a father to him over six weeks in Crema than his own father ever was.

“Just be honest with him.” The professor urges simply and wisely, with the reassuring calmness Oliver has forgotten to expect from Elio’s father. 

“Tell him what you’ve discovered, and talk to him about it. Try to understand. Don’t make it a confrontation, but rather listen without judgement… You can’t erase years of beating this pattern into someone’s being with just your reappearance. But if you’re committed enough to see this through to the end – and I know that you are – then just give all you can, until he’s strong enough to want more for himself, and give back.”

Oliver sighs, slowing his breathing. 

“You’re right.” He says simply, defeatedly. There’s a few seconds of silence before he hears a reply.

“Talk to him when he wakes up. Stay calm, Oliver. It’s going to be okay.”

“Do you truly believe that?”

“He’s my son; I have to believe that.”

Back in the apartment Oliver can hear Elio rifling through the bathroom cabinet, looking for a bottle that’s not there anymore. As he walks out of the room the shadows under his eyes seem more pronounced, the shaking sweat he wakes up with most mornings a painfully obvious sign Oliver should have acknowledged for exactly what it was sooner. There’s a wary, fearful expression on his sunken face, only made more heart-breaking by the mop of damp, matted hair framing his face. 

As he moves further into the room Elio’s eyes dart to the kitchenette, spotting his collection of bottles. He closes his eyes, making a plainly pained face, like a man walking towards his execution. 

He quickly hardens it into something else though, steeling himself. He’s preparing to protect himself, for Oliver to tell him he’s pathetic, and disgusting, and not good enough for him anymore, and that he’s leaving. He’s preparing for his world to crumble again. He’s making a mental note to call in sick to work because he knows he’s going to drink himself half to death tonight if not the whole way, because he’s feeling none of the relief he’d desired as he silently prayed _figure it out, figure it out, figure it out_…

“You went through my things.” His tone is hard, as though Oliver has betrayed him somehow or encroached on his privacy, when they both know they’re supposed to be one and the same; no boundary between Elio and Oliver, Oliver and Elio. But how could Oliver want him this way? Now that he’s lost every good thing he used to have to offer, and then picked up some bad things for good measure? 

Oliver says nothing, just looks at Elio with an unreadable expression from his position sitting at the table.

Elio huffs, shrugging his shoulders exaggeratedly. 

“I guess the game’s up then. What gave me away?” His tone is all defence and sarcasm. “‘_Sweet, innocent Elio grew up to have a fucking drinking problem_’. _What a shame_! You’ll have to go back to Italy and find someone who’s still unspoiled and perfect to love.”

He knows he’s being childish and histrionic but he’s scared, and compromised, and he doesn’t want to give Oliver the chance to hurt him again. He doesn’t think he could survive it.

Only, Oliver doesn’t try to hurt him.

“Don’t do that.” He begs, expression suddenly scared and pleading, then pained. “_Please_ don’t shut me out over this.” 

Elio doesn’t know what to say to that, but he drops his tense, defensive act in the face of no attack. He tentatively allows some of his vulnerability to show through his guarded expression, dropping his tense shoulders. 

“Please just sit down.” The man at the table beseeches. “I just want to talk about it. This isn’t some kind of intervention, I just want you not to have to lie to me.” He says it calmly but earnestly, following Samuel’s advice.

“I haven’t been lying.” Elio mumbles as he sits, knowing it’s not true. “I’ve just not been telling you everything.” His discomfort at his exposure is clear. He doesn’t know what to do with his shaking hands, so he just hides them under the table, between his legs.

“You _have_ been hiding this from me.” Oliver says, not critically but giving no ground. Just facts.

“I’ve just been waiting for you to figure it out.” Elio whispers honestly, voicing the thought that’s echoed through his head for weeks.

“Well, I know now, I’ve figured it out. Please just talk to me about it… I’m not asking you to change.”

“But you _will_ want me to change.” Elio insists tearfully, childlike as he drops his gaze from Oliver’s eyes to his lap, biting his trembling lower lip. “You’ll want me to give it up, when it’s the only thing that always makes me feel better or… or at least lets me forget how ruined everything is and how bad I feel.”

“But how can just living your life feel so bad that you need to push it all away like this?” It’s clear from Oliver’s tone that he’s not accusing Elio of being weak, or lesser. He’s just trying to understand this new Elio, and process how he thinks.

“You wouldn’t understand.” Elio whispers. He still hasn’t looked up from his hands, body curling in on itself. Oliver doesn’t want him to shut down, he wants him to try to communicate.

“Try to explain it, _make_ me understand, _please._ You’re unhappy, you’re sad, I want to understand it.” He implores. 

Elio sighs, frustrated.

“I’m not just… _sad_, Oliver.” He meets his eyes for only a moment as he says his frustrated words, before looking to the side searching for more. 

“I’ve been sad before, that’s not it at all, I’m just… I feel nothing. I feel nothing but it’s _bad_ nothing. When I’m down, I know I’ve been happy before but I can’t remember why or how or what that even felt like. It’s like... every moment of my life is more of an effort than the last since you left, even when the feeling stopped being about you. There were times when it wasn’t so bad but the last two years have been _hell_ – except when I do this thing. 

“I feel like I have nothing, no future worth living. But I have to live through that future anyway or I’ll hurt people I love, and to get to that future I have to struggle through this tar I’ve been caught in for years and years and everywhere I turn there’s just more tar and I’m exhausted all the time and it all just feels _awful_, but when I do this thing… all of that is a little easier for a while. And there’s no point in _not_ doing it because it’s all the same either way and who’s there to care? And I used to be able to just sleep it all away but I can’t _do_ that anymore because I have to work to live here and honestly the only thing that’s stopped me from blowing my fucking _brains_ out by now is that I know it would destroy my parents and they would never recover.”

He takes a moment to catch his breath after the outpouring before continuing a little more calmly.

“So I do this thing,” he explains, “until I can’t remember how awful everything is. And if it causes other problems, well that’s okay because all those problems can be solved by just doing it some more. It’s simple, and easy, and everything else is complicated, and hard. It’s so easy to forget what matters in the long term when every day is a fresh torture you need to get through day by day and week by week until one day you finally get to die.

“Even with you here I _know_ I should be happy and I was at first and I am _so glad_ you’re here and that we can have another shot at this and I’m so _scared_ you’re going to leave me again and I _need_ you to know that but...” He searches for words, tears welling in his shifting eyes again. 

"I don’t know how to do this any differently, and I don’t remember what it was like to wake up and not immediately think ‘wow, I wish I was dead’.”

When Elio’s outpouring is over and he finally lifts his eyes to Oliver’s after a long moment of silence, the older man looks crushed. 

He feels relief at his cathartic outburst, but also shame. He’s never said all of that to anyone, never written it down, never even whispered it to himself as he cried in the dark thinking through it all. He’s kept it all locked up inside, and now his words are all over the floor at once, and he wishes he could take them back. But he can’t. 

How could Oliver want someone so ruined?

When he finally speaks it’s with a furrowed brow, and utter, tender concern.

“…Have you tried to kill yourself before, Elio?”

“No.” He replies but he knows he answered too quickly.

“_Please_, no more secrets.” Oliver implores, closing his eyes exhaustedly.

It’s soft and scared when Elio answers.

“I… I don’t know.” 

“You don’t _know_?” A note of incredulity enters Oliver’s sympathetic tone.

“I don’t know. I’ve ended up in hospital with alcohol poisoning a couple of times but I don’t know what I was thinking before waking up, I can’t remember. When my dad came to visit me and found out about everything I woke up the next day and I could barely _see_ I felt so bad, but—” 

He pauses, not wanting to air this, not wanting to bring this thing he’s buried and erased from his history back to life. Not wanting to share something so shameful, that he can’t ever take back and bury again. 

But _no more secrets, Elio_. 

“I found a note. That I wrote, or started to write, the night before.” He doesn’t say it explicitly, but he’s sure his tone conveys what he means. “I destroyed it and never told my parents, because I didn’t want them to worry, didn’t want to think about what I’d almost done to them. I’m sure they were the only reason I didn’t… you know.”

Elio is confessing before he can think to hold it in. 

“Sometimes I just lie on the couch and fantasise about all ways I could die that wouldn’t be my fault - just a tragic accident... half the time when I just start crying there it’s because I started thinking about that and then I think about how much my death would hurt my parents no matter how it happened and I feel trapped.”

It’s silent again for a long time. 

Elio doesn’t look up, doesn’t want to amplify his shame by looking at Oliver’s probably horrified expression; _How could you be so selfish?_

But he doesn’t say that. He asks a different question.

“Do you still want to kill yourself? Enough to do something? You said that you wake up wanting to die.”

“Not enough to go through with it – not now.” He promises, not wanting to scare Oliver more.

“Because I’m here?”

“Because you’re here, yes.” He nods, choosing honesty.

Oliver doesn’t say anything for a long time, so Elio speaks his thoughts in a tiny voice. “You’re going to leave me now, aren’t you?” 

Oliver’s expression is pure confusion. “No, Elio, I’m not going to leave you, why would you think that? Why do you keep thinking that?” 

Immediately the tears are back.

“Because you’ve done it before.” He says in a small, heartbreaking voice. “And I was still good then so it would be so much easier to do it again now that I’m bad and I have this... problem.”

“You’re not _bad_ for struggling with this Elio. Lots of people do. I’m here for _all_ of you, not just some fairytale idea of a perfect person.” There’s a desperate frustration in Oliver’s voice at the end of his reply.

“But you want me to change.”

“I want you to be _happy_.” Oliver clarifies, holding Elio’s gaze and making sure he sees the truth in his eyes. “…And I don’t think you can do that like this, but I’m not here to demand anything of you Elio. I hate that this is happening to you but I can’t make it go away, so I just want you to know that you don’t have to hide yourself from me, so we can face it all together.” 

And then he repeats what Samuel said to him not ten minutes ago. 

“I know you’ll change things when you’re ready to change.”

“I’m not ready.” Elio says quickly, gauging Oliver’s reaction to the certainty of his tone.

“I know.” He says, pure acceptance. “I still love you.”

“I— I love you, too.” Elio says with a sense of awe at the words. 

It doesn’t go over his head that it’s the first time they’ve said it out loud, but he needs to get this out. “I’m just… I’m not strong enough to change anything yet.”

“I know.” Oliver calmly replies again. “And I know that it has to be your choice. Just don’t hide this from me. Your problems are my problems.”

Silence falls over the room as Oliver studies Elio, thinking on the ridiculousness of him thinking he could ever want to be apart again, would have conditions on his love.

Without the imminent threat of losing Oliver, the adrenaline coursing through Elio’s veins abruptly abandons him, leaving him in his usual post-sleep state of withdrawal. Oliver can see the cogs turning in his head, follows his travelling gaze to the kitchen.

“You can do it,” he says, “I know you’re hurting for it. I’m not going to say anything.”

Slowly, shakily, Elio stands, giving Oliver a suspicious look like he doesn’t believe his words. It breaks Oliver’s heart all over again how quick he is to stride into the kitchen once he’s up, and spin the top off of a bottle, raising it. Except, he doesn’t drink straight away, he hesitates. Slowly, he walks back over to the table with the bottle, sits down, and then looks Oliver in the eyes. 

He doesn’t break eye-contact as he lifts the bottle and drinks. After a few deep pulls he places it down on the table, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Oliver can see heart-breaking relief on his face, and then apprehension. 

He’s testing him.

“Do you still love all of me?”

“Yes.”

At that, he stands up and starts removing his clothing, methodically, until he’s standing naked before Oliver. He stands there, frail, shaking, unwashed, and with his hair hanging dirty around his drawn face.

“Do you still love all of me?” He says, with a challenge in his eyes.

“Yes.”

He walks over and pulls Oliver up by his hands. He kisses him long, and deep, allowing the whisky scent in his mouth to reach him, and pulling the older man’s hands to feel his jutting ribs as he does.

“Do you still love all of me?” He asks with drawn brows instead of a challenge, pulling back but keeping Oliver’s hand on his ribs. “Even though I look different, and I taste different, and I smell different, and I can’t make it through the day without poisoning myself?”

“..._Yes_.” The older man whispers, hoping the truth in his answer will finally get through.

It hurts him, but he knows he has to play this game with Elio as he’s looking up at him, searching his face. For what, Oliver doesn’t know. But he must find it, because the boy wraps his arms around him and whispers against his chest.

“Okay. I believe you.”

As they stand there Oliver catalogues another change in Elio - he's less open with himself now because he's so much more _ashamed_. Mafalda was right; in Crema, Elio did not know shame, not the way he would as an adult. He feels this need to show the ugliness he sees inside himself so fiercely before he can undress from his armour, because to be vulnerable in the face of rejection would hurt too much to bear.

_Oh, Elio..._

  
“Don’t leave me now…  
I must confess,  
Haven’t been the worst,  
Haven’t been the best since you came.

But it’s all the same,  
It’s all the same…”

[\- Don't Leave Me Now, Micah P. Hinson](https://youtu.be/_YZYyVzYT3k?t=95)


	6. Chapter 6

For a while things are good again. There’s no secret between them and that weight coming off Elio’s shoulders lightens the load, lessens the need to escape the world. 

For Oliver it’s a mixed bag. He feels the distance between them close, glad that Elio isn’t hiding from him anymore, but… knowing how often and how much Elio drinks is a unique pain. He’s sure it’s less than before but that’s not exactly comforting either. Elio returns to something closer to the first few weeks; his speech is clearer, he sleeps less, he smiles more. 

But knowing what he’s doing every time he takes a sip out of that black bottle, knowing whether something that’s said or seen on the tv upsets him by whether he stands up to go over to his bottles... it hurts. He doesn’t measure things out or use glasses, usually, just drinks straight from the bottle like either he doesn’t care or he doesn’t want to know... sometimes he’ll see Oliver looking over at him trying to keep the mournful look off his face, and he’ll sigh and put down the whisky bottle, exchanging it for wine in a glass to sip. Sometimes Elio will be on his way to the kitchen for the second time in ten minutes and Oliver will intercept him, pulling the boy towards him by the hands and gently whispering “Come on, it’s okay, you don’t need it again...”. Elio’s face will crumple and he’ll cuddle up to Oliver, whispering that he’s sorry, how much he loves him, that he’s so sorry he isn’t ready, begging him to stay with him... Oliver doesn’t like the begging or the desperate apologies but it’s one of the ways he knows it’s still absolutely his Elio underneath it all. 

Oliver wasn’t lying when he said he loved all of Elio but it still hurts to see how entirely his world has changed for the worse while he’s been gone. It hurts when he accidentally overdoes it and needs help to get to bed, infrequent as it is... 

There are nice moments though, even with Elio’s problem out in the open. 

They can pretend everything is normal when they go out to a nice restaurant and share a few drinks over a beautiful meal. Oliver is happy to sit across from Elio and study his face in the candlelight, delighted that it seems less drawn and always looking for little ways to make him giggle. To any other patrons they must just look like a young couple getting tipsy together. 

Sometimes Elio will go out while Oliver works on his book and come back with a novel he bought for them, reading it to the older man while they share cigarettes by the apartment’s single window. Oliver smiles as he watches the sun set and lets the cadence of Elio’s speech wash over him like it used to in Crema. 

Every Tuesday they sit in front of the television with some popcorn and watch whatever movie is being shown. Elio curls up into Oliver’s side with the older man’s strong arm around him and a glass of nice red wine. Sometimes he laughs properly at the movie or looks up at Oliver like he can’t believe he got so lucky and it’s all Oliver has wanted for the last six years. When he offers Oliver the occasional sip he takes it and tells the younger man what he thinks of the taste, not wanting to break the spell or make him feel judged. 

It could be a normal scene; normal couples do this, he thinks. Normal couples probably don’t finish the bottle with only one of them drinking it, but it could be _so, achingly_ normal… 

“There were moments when it seemed okay…  
Where do you go, and where do you stay?  
There was a time when the music would play,  
Oh…”

[\- Realiti, Grimes](https://youtu.be/imA0hMul7T0?t=145)

Those times only make it harder for Oliver on the bad days though. When Elio crashes in from work at 4am it’s not cute like it was the first night, knowing what he knows. 

Sometimes it’s the door but often tortured retching wakes Oliver up, and he stumbles sleepily over to wherever Elio is this time to hold his hair back, ignoring his weak protests. 

Elio has taken care of himself this way for more than a year but Oliver still tries to make it easier, and Elio allows himself to be taken care of over time, as exhaustion sets in and a simpler path presents itself. 

Oliver makes him drink a glass of water and carries him to bed, whispering that he _has to stop doing this._

He says he knows every time but it’s hard to forget the image of your love’s head lolling over your arm as you wonder whether he’ll just pay in the morning or if you need to watch him all night to be sure he doesn’t choke on his vomit in his sleep. 

All the while wishing you could take away the hurt that wasn’t there before, that makes him drink himself into that state...

Oliver recalls Elio’s fascination with him on the toilet in Bergamo, his desire to know all of him from his highest thoughts to his basest bodily necessities... he’s intimately familiar with the contents of Elio’s stomach now, trying to coax it all up before bed when he looks nauseous so he doesn’t choke. 

A few times he gives up on gentleness and just hauls Elio’s semi-limp body to the bathroom to throw up without bothering to try to communicate with him, leaning him over the toilet and pressing ever so slightly on his stomach and then just waiting for him to be done. 

It’s remarkable how he instinctually grips the bowl and aims when he can barely think straight, and remarkable how easily it all comes up as he does; but with the amount of alcohol he consumes and then the lack of food, his stomach is always quick to rejection.

Normally it would feel wrong treating Elio like that, but... Oliver knows that he won’t remember in the morning no matter what happens. 

Elio’s not really there on those nights.

In bed he holds him tight and hopes that someday soon his love will be enough to make a difference, praying that this is the right approach and that he’s not just enabling this.

Weeks, then months pass this way, highs and lows. But over time the lows start to outnumber the highs and things get worse again. 

Oliver misses knowing he can always talk to Elio without hearing the slurring that becomes so common, misses their bright conversationalism and wit. Not that Elio can’t banter or spar anymore, but it’s not the same and they both know it. When he tries to stop Elio going back for more too quickly it’s only a fifty fifty chance whether he’s met with gasping apologies or his love just pushing past him, grumbling irritatedly that he promised he wasn’t going to ask him to change. He struggles to find the balance between showing that he hates it and keeping that promise. Some days he feels like he’s just holding Elio’s place in his life until this stranger is ready to transform… but that’s not right at all. He loves this Elio as well, with all his heart, with all his sympathy… he just wishes he had the energy to want more. Oliver desperately wants more for him. 

The only place Oliver does draw the line is that he won’t have sex with Elio when he’s wasted. He doesn’t want that special thing between them to be tainted by memories like that. One night Elio comes home from the bar, not obliterated but clearly upset about something and very drunk. He tries to initiate something after Oliver greets him half asleep, running one of his hands over his defined chest, his abdomen, trailing lower and lower until Oliver stops him with a gentle but immovable hand on his wrist.

“Nuh mm. Don’t wanna.” He breaths, through his exhaustion, rolling over a little further towards his side of the bed, and away from Elio. He feels the younger man roll onto his back on his side of the bed and sigh. He thinks that’s going to be the end of it and is already mostly asleep when he feels the bed shake, unmistakably with Elio’s crying.

“What’s wrong?” He mumbles, confused in his exhaustion.

“’m sorry, ignore me. Go back to sleep.” Elio replies tearfully.

“I can’t sleep if I know you’re upset.” Oliver replies, mostly awake now, rolling over to pull Elio back towards him. To his surprise he meets resistance, with Elio swatting his hand away weakly.

“I’m always upset, ’m such a fucking baby.”

“You’re not a baby, Elio. You’re not.” He whispers on his side with his face next to Elio’s, watching the boy cry silently, his profile silhouetted by the moonlight coming through the window. “You’re just depressed.” But Elio isn’t listening to him.

“I’m disgusting, I know, and I’m so, so sorry… I just wish you could want me.” He cries. 

“I _do_ want you Elio, I just don’t want to fool around at 4am when I’m tired and you’re drunk.” Oliver explains. 

But this was clearly not the right thing to say, as Elio just closes his eyes and shakes his head as though trying to block out the world. 

So Oliver says the one thing he’s sure will get through to Elio, show him how much he still loves him, still wants him, with his whole soul. He says:

“I love you, Oliver.”

And it does quiet his crying but not in the way Oliver wants. Elio just turns to stare at him, sadly, his grief having changed its form but not stopped hurting him. 

“Why won’t you say it back?” He asks.

Elio replies softly, confessing calmly.

“Because I can’t be you.” He says as though it were obvious. “I can’t be a part of you. I can’t share your name. Because you’re good and giving, and... _shining_, and I can keep it together for a few months but then I go back to being wretched, and disgusting, and bad.” 

“You’re not _bad_ Elio. You’re just sick.” But the boy just shakes his head back and forth, sighing. He says he’s sorry again before leaving the bed and heading out into the kitchen. Oliver sighs as he hears a glass bottle unscrewing, sees Elio taking it over to the couch – at least it’s only the wine.

He gets up, wearied, and walks over to the couch where the TV has been turned on to the news. He places a hand on Elio’s shoulder from behind but he just shakes his head. 

“I’m sorry Oliver, I just need to be alone right now… This isn’t something you can help me with.”

Oliver thinks about protesting or silently joining him without asking, to be his support, wanted or not. But he decides to respect the boy’s wishes.

“Okay.” He says. He places a kiss on the top of Elio’s head and brings up one of his hands to press against his face, kissing his palm and going back to the bedroom. He calls softly over his shoulder, “You need to stop calling yourself disgusting. You’re not disgusting.”

He hears a small _thank you_, and _I’m sorry_ called softly from the hunched figure on the couch, bowed head haloed by the light from the television.

As he lays down to sleep Oliver files away another change in Elio, another scar upon his love for him to silently feel responsible for when his thoughts are left to wander... Samuel was right, Elio is different; but not just the drinking and the depression. It’s something in some way crueller, deeper... The difference is the self-loathing. 

Elio hates himself now, where he hadn’t before. 

And there’s nothing Oliver can do. There’s nothing he can do but sleep now, and be rested to be Elio’s rock again in the morning.

_He’ll change when he’s ready to, he’ll change when he’s ready to, he’ll change when he’s ready to, he’ll change…_

“It's so embarrassing to need someone like I do you.  
How can I explain? I need you here and not here too.  
How can I explain? I need you here and not here too.”

[\- The Past is a Grotesque Animal, of Montreal](https://youtu.be/h7vTHrNCVbY?t=93)

After a few months of this limbo, some times okay and others cutting deep, Oliver gets a call at midnight.

“Is this Oliver?”

“Yeah, who’s this?” He replies tiredly into the receiver of the phone, the ringing of which woke him up. He’s so tired of being woken up in the middle of the night.

“It’s Johnnie. You need to come get Elio from the bar.” 

Oliver is immediate jolted fully awake. “What, is he okay?”

“I mean, yes and no. He’ll be fine, but he can’t get home by himself like this.”

“What happened?” 

“I don’t know, some old woman came up and talked to him after his last session and he took a bottle back stage. He’s pretty fucking wasted, even for him.” Oliver can hear the concern in the other man’s voice but he still doesn’t like hearing such casual words spoken about Elio when something is clearly wrong.

“I’m on my way.”

When Oliver sees Elio it’s both shocking and no surprise. The sound of lively music over the speakers and the jovial laughter of the patrons still occupying the main hall is so dissonant paired with the image of Elio lying down in the foetal position on the couch in the darkest corner of the back room. He must have been crying like this for a long time judging by the size of the stain on the material by his face. 

Oliver’s heart breaks all over again. What could have caused this? 

Elio starts when Oliver places a hand on his shoulder, but immediately reaches up for him when he realises who it is. Oliver is pulled forward, with Elio unable to support himself.

“Y’re here.” Elio manages to get out, wetly, breathlessly.

“I’m here.” Oliver reassures. 

It feels like a terrible, important moment. It feels like he’s finally going to have to say something tomorrow. He’s seen Elio sloppy drunk but not like this, not before he’s finished his shift. It’s getting worse.

“Pleasetakemehome.” The plea comes out as one word through the drink.

“We’ll get you home Elio, don’t worry.” 

Something needs to give, but right now Elio is in need of comfort, love, acceptance. 

So he picks Elio up and carries him out the back door, depositing him in the waiting taxi. As he walks around the car to the other side Johnathan stops him. 

“He never gets like this here. He’s been better since you’ve been together until suddenly he’s worse.” 

The delicacy that was missing on the phone comes through in the bartender’s voice now. 

“I know.” Oliver sighs. “I don’t know what’s making it so bad again.” 

Johnnie shrugs sympathetically. 

“He’s depressed. Ups and downs I guess. He can’t keep this up forever though... I’m really worried about him.” 

“I’m worried too.” Oliver replies. “His liver... I know I’m going to have to say something tomorrow but...” He trails off, fear and grief plain in his eyes. 

Johnnie tilts his head. “How are _you_ doing with all of this? ...Are you okay, Oliver?” 

Oliver glances over at this person who was there for Elio when he wasn’t, who kept him warm and loved in a cold place and time even if he didn’t love him in the same way Oliver did. 

He doesn’t know him well at all but who else is Oliver going to confide in? He hasn’t been talking to Samuel, not wanting to deliver news of his failure to make the man’s son happy and carefree again, but rather allowing Elio to inadvertently convey it through his own weekly calls with his parents. He sure can’t talk to his old friends and colleagues about it all, let alone his family... 

Honestly, when Elio is sleeping or at work and it’s just Oliver and his thoughts... he’s been lonely. Scared. In love. 

It’s been a difficult combination and gone unspoken. 

“Honestly... it was good for a while but now most of the time I feel like I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. I’m so scared I’m making it worse... I made it better and then it got worse and then it got better once I knew about the drinking and now it’s bad again and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help him and I’m scared I never will. I’m scared that it’s all my fault and all I’ve done is enable him.” 

Oliver expects maybe a kind look or a hand on the shoulder for his outpouring, but instead, unexpectedly, Johnnie pulls him into a hug. The man is smaller than him but it is grounding and consuming. It’s an embrace between two men bound together by their love and caring for someone they can’t help until he's ready to ask. 

All this time it never occurred to Oliver that he might need a moment to fall apart as well to keep going. It’s all been on the back burner, but Johnnie’s words ground him as the smaller man retreats and holds him at arms length, looking at him earnestly. 

“You have no idea the difference you have made to him. I'm no paragon of good, clean living, but I’ve spent more than a year watching him get worse and better and worse and accepting that it wasn’t my place to intervene... And he _came alive_ when you came back. He’s wavering now and he needs time to figure it all out but you have been nothing but good for him. Don’t doubt that.” 

Oliver closes his eyes and releases a breath, not wanting to break down here and now. 

“Listen, he’s really going to need you tomorrow and for a long time after, but you need to take care of yourself as well. Talk to someone. Talk to his dad.” 

Oliver just nods, knowing he’s right, but also knowing that he needs to keep it together right now. 

Johnnie just smiles at him and abruptly says he has to get back to his shift. As suddenly as it arrived, the moment of sincerity and connection is gone. 

Oliver gets in the taxi and takes Elio home, grateful that he doesn’t throw up in the car on the way. He does empty the amber contents of his stomach on the outside wall of their building, but no one will bat an eye at that. Oliver performs his usual routine, making him drink a glass of water before taking him to bed, where they can hold each other tight until the morning when they’ll have to face all of this.

Except this time Elio is talking through the alcohol in his system.  


“Youloveme, youstillloveme, right? Things’re badagain, butyoustillloveme, youstillloveme…” He babbles softly, breathlessly.

Oliver shushes him, too tired by his outburst to do more. “I still love you Elio, just go to sleep.”

Elio’s thoughts are chaotic but he finds himself without the tools necessary to communicate them, so he does as told and falls into a fitful sleep. But he wakes up a few hours later, a few hours soberer. He wakes Oliver up, shaking his shoulder.

“Go back to sleep.” Oliver mumbles, feeling like a worn-out parent.

“I can’t.” Elio whines desperately. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

Oliver sighs tiredly. “Why not?”

A ragged breath escapes the boy.

“One of my old tutors was at the bar tonight.”

“Oh?” Oliver replies, more awake now but not quite knowing how to respond. 

But he doesn’t need to know, because it’s like a dam breaking. Slowly at first and then a tidal wave, Elio’s words gradually dissolve into sobbing wails.

“She asked if I had forgotten everything she taught me and told me my talent was wasted there and I know she was just joking around but it hurt because I was drunk and I _have_ forgotten everything she taught me; I can’t make beautiful music anymore because either I’m too drunk to play things properly or my hands shake, and I can’t bear all the knowledge I’ve lost and how you used to love that I knew so much about things and how I can’t talk to you like I used to lately and how much I miss how you used to touch me and I saw you and Johnnie hugging outside the car tonight and I’m so sorry I made you feel like that and I’m so terrified of losing you even though I think you should be with someone better and I’m so _selfish_ trapping you here with all my up and down _bullshit_ and I just…” 

He breathes in a hitched breath. 

“I don’t want to be stained anymore. I don’t want to be like this, I don’t want to feel like this… I’ve lost so much to this and I’m so, _so_ tired... It’s." He sighs. "It's getting harder to stay like this than to try to change.”

It takes Oliver a moment to reply, nuzzling the space between Elio’s shoulder and his head. 

“You can change things.” He says. “You can get better. It’ll be okay, I’ll help you get better.” He says, kissing Elio’s clavicle.

“I need you to help me, I can’t do this on my own.” The boy begs through his tears, deaf to Oliver’s assurances, clinging to the arm around him. “Help me, _please_, I need you, I want to be better for you.”

Oliver can do nothing but reassure this broken person he loves so much, so deeply, gently pressing kisses into any part of him he can reach, shushing him and telling him they’ll talk in the morning. 

God, he hopes Elio will remember this; he doesn’t think he can handle it if he changes his mind.

“_Want_ something…

Want _something_.

…

Somebody need me too much.  
Somebody know me too well.

Somebody pull me up short,  
And put me through hell,  
And give me support,  
For being alive…

Make me alive…  
Make me alive…”

[\- Being Alive, Stephen Sondheim](https://youtu.be/am8qrrZAtP4?t=208)


	7. Chapter 7

If ever Oliver has gone to sleep more frustrated with Elio than sympathetic, it’s always melted at the sight of him in the morning, curled up in his arms and sleeping.

Countless mornings Oliver has woken up to feel memories of irritably trying to keep upright a stumbling Elio who had promised he wouldn't get too drunk the night before just melt away, at the sight of his love’s blank face.

It helps remind him of what - of _who_ \- he's holding on for.

He’s the same age Oliver was when they first met, but he looks so _young_ when he’s like this... It makes Oliver’s protective instinct rear its head, and makes his resolve to be whatever Elio needs strengthen again. It's his fault that things have ended up like this ultimately anyway, no matter what anyone tells him...

He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop feeling responsible for it all. 

He feels Elio waking up in his arms, later than him, as usual the next morning. It’s different today though. Elio doesn’t wake up trying to make the situation normal like he has been lately, groaning through a yawn and asking what Oliver is still doing in bed with a huff of false laughter. Instead Oliver feels him begin to stir, watches him as he looks up to the ceiling and then buries his face in his pillow in… shame? Anguish?

Immediately he removes his arms from around Elio and moves around the bed to kneel in front of him. He needs to know whether he’s dealing with the Elio who wants to get better or the one who just needs to get through the day, the hour, the minute.

He’s not sure what to say at first, but after taking Elio’s hands and watching his tired eyes open to meet his, Oliver settles on:

“Are you okay?”

Elio immediately closes his eyes as his expression crumples, tears quickly appearing in his dark lashes as he shakes his head. He breathes deeply and raggedly.

“Do you remember what happened at work?” 

Elio nods. 

“Do you remember what you said to me after?” 

He nods again. “I think so.”

“Do you still want what you said you wanted last night?” 

Another nod, this time with his eyes wide open, afraid and imploring; desperate.

“_Please_, help me.” He whimpers, fear in his eyes. There’s something so heart-breakingly human about the way he says it, and repeats it without defence or justification. He’s saying, ‘_Please, I am at your mercy and I need you. I cannot help myself, and I cannot make you, but please, please, help me_’.

In answer Oliver pulls Elio up on the bed and into his embrace, holding him tight as though he could hold him together, shield him from the world within and without him with just his body alone.

“I’m here.” He assures his love, his soulmate. “We’ll make it work. It’ll be better.” 

Elio’s crying eases under his hold, as though some of Oliver’s strength were melting into his bones.

Eventually they find themselves sitting at the table across from one another, ready to have the difficult conversation. Elio is trembling as usually he does after waking up, but today there’s a look in his eye. He feels a tentative strength where usually he would feel utterly weak. He’s finally sick enough of his own bullshit to start trying to put up a fight.

“How are we going to do this?” Oliver asks, wanting Elio to lead – Elio knows what he needs better than he does, surely.  


“No programs, no institutions, no dogma.” He replies immediately. At the very least he’s certain of what he doesn’t want. 

“I want…” He thinks for a moment. “I don’t want this to consume my life forever after. I don’t want to be defined by this, I don’t want… I don’t want to not be able to be like everybody else having a glass of wine at dinners. I just want to not be stuck like this anymore.”

“What if you can’t find that middle ground?”

“Then I’ll deal with that then, but for now I just… I just want to slow to a halt. I don’t want some dramatic drying out in a cold hospital surrounded by people I don’t know with needles in my arms. I just want to be able to be with you properly, like you deserve. I just want you to tell me what to do… I can’t do it and I trust you more than anyone else in the world so I want you to be in control.”

“How do you mean?”

“You could… dose me. Clinically. Like you’re giving me medicine. I don’t want to have a choice.”

“You can’t work at the bar if that’s what you want. You can’t work at the bar anymore no matter how you choose to go about this.”

Elio’s expression suddenly clouds. “I didn’t think about that... I’m probably fired after last night anyway.” Shame crosses his face again.

“…Look. I know you probably don’t want this, but I can support us. I can pay rent and buy food until you’re ready.”

Elio considers for a moment, answering with surrender in his voice.

“You’re right. I don’t want that. But… I also know that you’re right that I can’t do this and work there at the same time.”

So they talk it through, come up with a plan of how to go about this. Oliver will dole out doses in the form of little shots of vodka, which Elio thinks is foul – like medicine. Oliver will call the bar and explain that Elio needs some time away, that he understands if he can’t come back afterwards. He’ll just never show up at the warehouse; he’ll be easy to replace, they won’t care.

It’s ultimately a simple process when they break it down into its parts. It’s only making the choice that is difficult. Oliver just knows he needs to do everything in his power to make sure the decision stays made. He has his doubts about the method but he’ll throw himself into anything Elio is willing to try.   


“Somebody crowd me with love.  
Somebody force me to care.

Somebody let me come through,  
I'll always be there,  
As frightened as you,  
To help us survive,

Being alive.  
Being alive.”   
[\- Being Alive, Stephen Sondheim](https://youtu.be/am8qrrZAtP4?t=266)

Oliver calls Samuel and shares his tentative optimism – the fever has finally broken, the wayward son is finally ready to try. To Oliver’s relief, Samuel offers to send them money every week. He wasn’t lying when he said he could support them but it’s good to know he won’t have to do it alone. 

He tells Samuel how hard it’s been, appreciates the man’s ability to listen and understand, to simply be a sympathetic ear... but despite how lonely and scared he’s been, with the change in the tide Oliver finds himself somehow revived. He’s happy that Elio decided he wanted to change himself, that Oliver didn’t have to say something in the morning, that there’s finally some kind of fight in Elio again... he can’t help but feel like the past few months don’t matter and look forward. 

Samuel also offers for Elio and Oliver to come back and stay with them in Crema again. Oliver only says he’ll bring it up with Elio when the time is right, but he loves the idea.

They experiment to see what will keep Elio level, experiment with how long he can go before it’s too much, figure out the numbers, avoid the worst of withdrawal. It’s clinical in some ways, but the love with which it’s performed makes all the difference to Elio.

After the experimenting period Oliver measures out four drinks in the morning, four over lunch, and six from dinner ‘til bed to send Elio to sleep. His tolerance breaks Oliver’s heart all over again but he’s not always slurring now; he barely seems affected. They spend their days reading, lazing by the tv, sometimes going for walks around the city. Elio is still clearly stuck in that life-sucking tar, but he’s not giving in. 

Over the next weeks they shift to four in the morning, three at lunch, five in the evening. He can last the day and sleep. They play board games, read, and curl up in bed.

They get impatient and abruptly try two in the morning, two at lunch, two in the evening.

The first day is uncomfortable - it's not enough to satisfy his body's need, but Oliver holds him through the sleepless night and whispers comforting words until morning.

The second day is worse. Oliver is out picking up some dinner for them because cooking sounded like too much effort, sighing in the waiting room as they remake the order after they get it wrong. He's anxious to get back to Elio to wipe his brow and bring him something delicious for him to eat on the couch while they watch a movie to distract him - though who knows if he'll be able to keep it down. Oliver doesn't have his watch on but it seems like a long time before he's opening the front door, apologising to the empty living room. Elio was in here half-watching some tv show when he left.

"Elio?" He calls out, receiving no answer. He places the food on the kitchen counter, next to the shot glass he uses to measure everything. He knows he put it away before he left. Dread pierces his heart as he turns to enter the bedroom to find clothing everywhere, every drawer ajar. His bleeding heart sinks to his stomach. The almost-full litre bottle of vodka was hidden in the bottom of the dresser, beneath Oliver's clothes, and it's gone. 

It's only after the dreadful realisation, that he hears faint weeping coming from the bathroom. He rushes over to find Elio in the bathtub clutching the bottle tight, his face red and shiny. Oliver hasn't seen him like this since the night he begged for his help after the bar incident.

He's kneeling beside the tub before he knows he's moved. 

"What did you _do_ Elio?" His fear and grief are clear in his voice and in his actions, as he wipes the boy's tears.

Finally, he looks up at him, his features almost unrecognisable through his unmasked tidal wave of emotions.

"I wanted to feel better, so I jusstold myself that I'd have one more t'take the edge off, but then I thoughtabout how I wouldn't getanother chance after you wereback so I had anotherone, an'then anotherone and then, I thought 'm fuckedanyway so I jusskept swallowing."

The older man leans back and rubs his face with his hands, sighing. "God, I should never have left."

Elio draws his eyebrows, his unfocused eyes widening. "No, it's not y'r fault, is'me. I'm the one who can't fucking do this..."

Oliver says nothing for a long moment, his thoughts spiralling.

"Is this-" He begins, halting abruptly, wanting to put off getting his answer for a moment. He turns to look Elio in the eye. "Is this you giving up?"

Elio stares at him for a moment as though trying to comprehend what was said, through the alcohol. His expression clouds and his eyes well with fresh tears before he replies, clearly heartbroken.

"_No_." He breathes hard for a few moments as though quashing rising panic before continuing, clearly fighting to communicate coherently. "Please don't give up onme, please, _please_! I wish I could giveitall back, I wish I hadn't done it! I don't wanna be this drunk I jusslost control, _please, help me_." He begs. 

Oliver is about to try to comfort him but Elio's grief suddenly morphs into a raging frustration with himself. 

"I have no _fucking_ control!", he exclaims before throwing the bottle clumsily to the other side of the bath where it shatters, spraying the remaining vodka everywhere and scattering shards of glass in the tub.

Oliver freezes, but as quickly as his anger arrived it is gone, pensive mourning in its wake, as he folds his arms over the side of the tub and rests his chin on them. "...I used to have control... You should jus'turn on the faucet and let me drown in here."

Finally Oliver recovers and pulls a tiny piece of glass from the boy's hair, reassuring him. He feels ill-equipped to help. 

"Don't talk like that Elio, nothing's changed, we just... we just need to take it slower." He's assuring himself as much as Elio, placing a hand on either side of the boy's head and giving him a gentle kiss on the forehead. He tries to look him in the eyes but Elio's eyes keep wandering, having difficulty staying in one place. There wasn't much vodka left so his vision must be swimming.

"I feel dizzy." He says dreamily, sounding very far away suddenly, very disconnected from his feelings. Oliver just nods, not knowing what to say. 

Suddenly Elio's face contorts, and he vomits vodka and stomach acid down the side of the tub - thankfully the inner side. Oliver jumps back as it pools by Elio's leg and seeps into his jeans. The smell is pungent. It's evidently not over, as Elio clumsily shifts to his hands and knees to throw up again. This time ruby red blood mixes with the liquid, and Oliver panics for a moment before he realises it's from the glass cutting into Elio's skin. He'll need to clean the cuts later, but all he can do for now is rub Elio's back and hold his hair away from his face as he gags and retches torturedly. 

After a few minutes he spits and sags, held up only by Oliver's quick hands, pulling him back until he's leaning against the other side of the tub. 

Businesslike, Oliver retrieves a plastic bag and a newspaper, collecting as many pieces of the glass as he can before washing the rest down the drain with the detachable shower head. He strips Elio with difficulty and throws the clothes into a hamper before rinsing him off as well, and bandaging the cuts.

It's like it was before only worse, as he wipes the cuts clean. Oliver knows it should hurt with the antiseptic, but Elio's only reaction to the sharp sting in his outstretched hands is a brief moment where he pulls them to his chest, before he gives in to the strength of the arms pulling them back out and gives up.

A few minutes later Oliver is standing in front of the boy in the bedroom, his warm pyjamas and freshly dried hair in stark contrast with his eyes, struggling to focus properly, and his mouth and nose, red and puffy from the vomiting. 

"Do you want to go to bed?" 

"...I don'think I can sleep yet."

So Oliver helps him over to the couch and they curl up until the moon is high in the sky and Elio starts to drift off. Looking down at his breathtaking, blank, sleeping face, you'd never know the problems the beautiful boy has, Oliver thinks... He picks him up and deposits the boy in the bed, gently. He wakes momentarily, confused before his eyes settle on the older man.

"This can't happen again." Oliver says simply. Elio nods, his brow furrowed with shame, and buries his face in the pillow to try to fall back asleep. Oliver lies down next to him and attempts to do the same, wishing the morning would come faster.

He starts buying the terrible vodka in smaller bottles he can keep on his person – so what if the cashier gives him sad looks thinking it’s all for him? They return to four in the morning, three at lunch, five at dinner. The tense holding pattern lasts well enough, though Elio is still clearly melancholic; unwell and unsatisfied. 

Oliver broaches the subject of going back home to Italy and at first Elio is resolutely against it.

“No. My dad has seen all this and worse but my mom… I don’t want my mom to see me like this.”

“She loves you Elio, I’m sure she’ll just be happy to see you again, no matter how.” He pauses, “I think it would be good for you to get away from the city... You’re so cooped up here right now. You should be somewhere you can walk, and breathe.”

The boy lets out a long breath, considering broodingly. “I’ll think about it.”

Two days later he comes to Oliver with his decision. 

“I think you might be right, about Italy… the more I think about it the more it feels like I’m meant to be back home to do this. It’s where I first met you, where I first lost you, where I first lost myself…” He seems absorbed in his thoughts for a moment before continuing. 

“I feel like I need to be back home to be myself again.” 

Oliver’s heart squeezes at the words, overjoyed to take Elio back to the people who love him. He finally feels like he’s actually making a difference, actually helping fix what he still secretly feels he’s broken in Elio’s life.  


Elio hates flying so he tells Oliver calmly that he’s going to drink however much he needs to before and during the flight. Oliver tells him it’s his decision.

He doesn’t lose control completely and blackout before boarding but he’s still visibly drunk and unsteady by the time Oliver is guiding him through the small airport in Italy, even with his tolerance. There’s sadness in Annella’s eyes when she sees her son, but she doesn’t show it if she’s shocked or dismayed at his appearance – it’s improved since Oliver first saw him again, but it would still be very different to her. She’s never seen him with his dirty hair so long, his face so drawn, lips so pale. But she hugs him, long and warm, a hand holding his head to her shoulder.

“Mom.” He says simply as he breathes in her familiar scent, not wanting her to hear him struggle for words. Oliver gives them their private moment while he puts their suitcases in the trunk of the small car. 

Elio’s efforts not to seem too drunk are undone by a stumble into Oliver as he opens the door, but Annella says nothing. 

He dozes in the car on the short night time ride home, only waking when Oliver shakes his shoulder, saying “We’re here.” He groans and tiredly unbuckles his seatbelt, allows Oliver to pull him out of the car and lift him into his arms like a child, too drunk and exhausted to care about his dignity. Oliver just wants to get him into bed. 

He carries the boy through the house, past Samuel who has an unreadable expression on his face. Oliver isn’t sure what he’s thinking but he’ll deal with it when Elio is up the stairs and safely deposited in the bed they shared so many years ago. When he’s tucked beneath the blankets and sleeping Oliver heads back downstairs to bring in the suitcases, only to find that Annella and Samuel have already done it and are waiting for him.

He’s tired from the flight but he knows they should talk, so they all sit downstairs. Samuel’s tone isn’t judgemental, just observant, when he speaks.

“You said he was doing better.”

Oliver sighs, weary. “He is. We’ve been measuring things out and cutting down, but he was really nervous for the flight so he just told me he was going to do what he had to do. I told him it was his decision.”

“Fair enough.” Samuel replies, nodding in understanding. 

“He looked so…” Annella starts, trailing off, as though she’s only just allowing it all to hit her. “I’ve seen him too thin, seen him tired and pale, but he looked so… The smell of him…” She seems horribly enraptured by the memory of seeing her son for the first time in almost two years. 

But she doesn’t break down like Oliver thinks she might, rather rubs a hand over her face, collects herself, and continues pragmatically. 

“Mafalda is away visiting her sick sister, so we won’t have to worry about her kicking up a fuss or saying anything. I’m sure you want to get back up to him and sleep, but while we’ve got you to ourselves, what do you need from us?”

Oliver tells them that they've brought measuring equipment with them and that they only need cheap vodka because Elio hates the taste, explaining their method and system. “I’ve brought some with me but only about two days’ worth. You guys only have the stuff he likes so I’ll need to go get some soon.”

“No, no, don’t you worry about that. We’ll go get it tomorrow.” Samuel says.

“It has to be in small bottle you can keep on you. We moved too fast once and he found the big bottle. It ended badly and he’s afraid of a repeat.”

Annella nods. “We can do that. We’ve hidden away all the wine and liquor under lock and key. I know he doesn’t want to be completely abstinent forever but at least for now, it’s all away.”

Oliver lets out a long breath – he hadn’t said anything yet but he’s glad they took care of the issue before he had to bring it up. “Thank you. Thank you both so much.”

“No, Oliver. Thank you, for bringing our son back to us – and not just physically.” Samuel says, solemnly and earnestly. Annella nods, with a similar grateful expression. 

“Have you been okay?” Annella asks gently. 

Oliver sighs, rubbing his face. 

“Honestly it was really hard for a while but since he made the decision... it all feels insignificant. There are harder days but it’s nothing compared to what it was now that we’re actually fighting for something. He’s really trying, and that’s all I need. I’ve been okay.” 

They both nod, understanding and accepting his answer. 

In the silence that follows the weight of the task before them settles over the room. They sit for a few moments before Oliver nods to them silently and takes his leave.

Annella calls up the stairs as he goes, desperation and determination clear in her voice, “He’s not going to be a statistic.”

Oliver pauses, nods, and continues.

Before curling up Oliver spends some time just admiring his Elio’s face in the moonlight streaming in through the open window. He looks less gaunt, less ill now – more like the Elio of so long ago who laughed and smiled and loved and learned here. Oliver remembers being able to see Elio’s dreams so clearly on his face before… the alcohol he’s imbibed tonight has stolen away his dreams, leaving his face and soul blank and empty. He’s not sure what he’s feeling about it. 

After letting go on the plane tomorrow will be a harder day, but they’ll go through it. 

He’s still so beautiful. 

“My fight is the one I share with you,  
Long nights and a basement full of booze...  
My heart is a struggle to ignore,  
If not this then what am I living for?”

[\- Home, The Trouble with Templeton](https://youtu.be/SwRvv1KueXw?t=23)


	8. Chapter 8

In the morning Oliver is worried that letting go will have diminished Elio’s iron will to slow to a stop, but to his relief they return to the holding pattern of four, three and five. After a few weeks Oliver tentatively asks if Elio is ready to try less again, and though the boy is clearly afraid of a repeat of the last alteration, he agrees to one less in the morning and one less at night. It goes as smoothly as such a thing can. 

The first time Annella walks in on their morning routine, watching her son lift a shot, she stops in her tracks. Elio sees her enter and pauses, staring at her in shame. Oliver also feels strangely guilty, standing there in front of his surrogate mother giving her son more of his poison.

“Désolé maman, you shouldn’t have to see this.” Elio turns his face away, his expression darkening.

“No tesoro, I should see precisely this. You’re my son, we should have no secrets from each other.” She walks up and rubs his back, nodding for him to continue. 

He clearly doesn’t want to do it in front of her, but he does once, waits for Oliver to pour, and then again, and then again, all with tears clouding his eyes.

Tears because he is embarrassed and ashamed of this need he has, this compulsion he’s brought upon himself, but also because he’s so, wholly touched by his mother’s unconditional love for him. Her unconditional acceptance of not only the good and the bad, but what he sees as the disgusting - the repulsive - within him.

The vulnerability of displaying his weakness, to one of few who can hurt him deeply, scares him. 

He turns to his mother and holds her tight as he shakes, choking up as he tries not to cry into her shoulder.

He is overwhelmed by the fear in being laid bare with all his nerve endings spread out, so this person he cares for could destroy him with one harsh touch...

And then having that person choose to caress them, and gently stroke them with love instead.

“I'm so touched by your goodness,  
You make me feel so criminal.  
How do you keep it together?  
I'm all, all unravelled…”

[\- The Past is a Grotesque Animal, of Montreal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3RAI8Ntamw&feature=youtu.be&t=459)

Elio usually wakes before Oliver now, shaking his shoulder in a wordless plea to go downstairs and have his doses of poison. Sometimes Oliver feels like Elio’s keeper, just the holder of the keys to the thing he wants most in the world… But the feeling always passes when Elio gets what he needs and relaxes, pressing his face against Oliver’s chest telling him how sorry he is, how much he loves him, how he can never repay him for what he’s given. 

They kiss more easily, fall into bed together more often, discover new things about each other’s wants and desires and tics as more and more layers of fog are removed from Elio’s soul.

His tolerance is down soon so the change is less dramatic than one might think, but it’s clear to Oliver, and Elio’s parents, that he’s fully alert after some time back home. He still doesn’t laugh as often as he did before or during the good times in New York... they can make him smile properly, but it's not an easy thing. He’s still tired and lost in his head, just without the added layers of separation between him and the world, between him and his feelings, or lack thereof... Things are better, but he still won’t call Oliver by his name. 

He takes up smoking again now that he doesn’t need to worry about making rent or affording food - he does it as a hobby, in effect, clearly addicted to the nicotine and the soothing motion of bringing a cigarette to and from his lips, as he hadn’t been when he smoked the last time Oliver was in Crema.

Oliver doesn't like that he smokes in the bath, while he reads, even at the table during meals, now... He hates the way Elio’s scent is all smoke, but he reassures himself that once the alcohol is gone they can focus on the depression and anything else that follows... Elio is just trying to cope with the urge to let go and just drink and drink, moment by moment.

A small part of him worries about whether Elio is even capable of enjoying something that makes him feel a little better without ending up addicted to it, anymore. He gets so irritable when he runs out and has to wait to go to the store... It’s not a helpful thought so he pushes it to the back of his mind, but the thought is there as he watches the smoke swirl around his love.

Eventually Elio gets tired of it all. Oliver suggests stepping down to two, two, three, and he just sighs, done.

“Why don’t we just cut the shit and be done with it? I’m tired of always having just a little bit of what I want and being unsatisfied and still feeling like shit...” He takes a moment to think – what is he trying to say? 

“…I just want to feel _clean_.” He exhales, exasperated. “I want my brain to just be me. I want to give myself a chance to stop feeling like this all the time.” He gestures to his chest, his brow furrowed.

Oliver smiles down at him, a little choked. The crease in Elio’s brow relaxes at his lit up expression.

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that.” He can’t keep the pride out of his voice as he pulls his love into his arms. 

“Things have come so far since I first saw you again.” He whispers, heartfelt.

They stand there for a long time before Oliver takes the half-full bottle out of his back pocket, and pours it down the drain. Elio watches, unsure what he’s feeling, but sensing that they’re doing the right thing. 

“Just to think one day we were just strangers.  
Oh, how I've ruined you…  
And, oh, how you've ruined me too…

And I want to be clean,  
No, I don't want to be mean.  
Or break anybody's heart…”

[\- I Want to Be Clean, Kevin Morby](https://youtu.be/JeTetGq6QfY?t=170)

Despite the cutting down, Elio still goes through difficult withdrawals. 

It’s nothing at all compared to what it would have been at the very beginning, but he spends the next few days curled up in bed, crying, sweating, trembling. He throws up a few times but that’s nothing he’s not used to. 

Oliver makes sure he drinks water, and plays with his hair, knowing there’s nothing he can do to help but to be there, a small island of comfort on unavoidably rough seas. 

Sami comes in to bring them fresh blankets and ginger tea on the first night and sees Oliver trying to soothe his son as he shakes, both too hot and too cold. All he can think as he leaves is that the last time he saw Elio trembling like this he was an innocent child with a fever. He spends the evening torturing himself by going through Elio's childhood photos, and comparing the happy, curious child to the struggling, trembling boy upstairs sweating out the last of his physical addiction. How did it happen? How did it get like this? He gives himself time to grieve and then reminds himself that Elio is here because he's getting better, before seeking Annella out for comfort knowing he'll need it. 

Finally, when the sun has set on the third day and the last light is leaving the sky, Elio can cry no more tears. He simply lies curled up on his side, looking out the window and smoking a cigarette. He looks laid bare as the ash falls onto the sheet beside him. He seems so small in the bed, at once childlike, and ancient in his bones.

But the worst is over, Oliver is sure. Or at least, he prays.

“All I do is sit and think about you.  
If I knew what you’d do…  
Collapse my veins wearing beautiful shoes.  
It’s not living if it’s not with you.

All I do is sit and drink without you.  
If I choose then I lose.  
Distract my brain from the terrible news,  
It’s not living if it’s not with you.”

[\- It's Not Living (If It's Not With You), The 1975](https://youtu.be/ZqoXU583vsY?t=145)

He’s noticeably different afterwards. He's clearly still depressed, but there’s an awareness in his eyes without the same desperation, without the hunger. It’s like before, whenever he wasn’t a little bit out of it, he was using his awareness to hunt for the next drink to separate himself from the world. 

He doesn’t cry like he used to, isn’t embarrassed and irritated all the time… but it's harder to make him smile, as well. He doesn’t kiss Oliver unless he’s kissed and they don’t have sex. Oliver tries to initiate it a few times but Elio just puts a hand on his cheek and shakes his head. Without the dosing times to break up the day they start to spend a lot of time dozing in bed, again. 

Sometimes Oliver or his parents get a rise out of him but Elio does most everything apathetically, and in some ways it’s worse than the crying.

He spends a lot of time wandering slowly about the grounds by himself, smoking. Oliver comes along one afternoon and asks him what he thinks about when he’s walking. His reply is as impassive as Oliver has come to expect in recent weeks.

“I don’t really think about anything most of the time." He shrugs, taking a drag from his cigarette. "It’s just strange to be walking around seeing every leaf, hearing every bird, feeling the grass under my toes with nothing dulling it or fogging my senses... and feeling absolutely nothing for it. It’s just me and reality, and I don’t know what I think about it.”

It’s not quite the answer Oliver wanted, but he nods, understanding. 

“Do you miss it?” He asks without judgement.

“I don’t know.” He replies honestly. “Sometimes I think ‘thank god that’s over, I never want to be stuck in a cycle like that again’, and other days it just feels like I could fall back into it at any second. Like it’s inevitable and I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Some days I feel like I’ll never be happy again either way and I remember all the reasons I started in the first place and I’m just glad there’s nothing around to drink.”

Oliver wraps a warming, steadying arm around him as they walk, knowing there’s nothing he can say to change any of it. All he can do is be a comfort, a constant, so that’s what he’ll be. 

He’ll be anything Elio needs him to be because he needs him. 

“What if I _am_ never happy again?” He asks, stopping and turning towards the taller man. “I’m tired of spending every day feeling… nothing. I’m so tired.” He looks up to Oliver, fear and despondency shining through his tired eyes . 

“You will be happy again, Elio. It’s just going to take some time.” 

His certainty comes through in his voice but this answer seems to dissatisfy Elio, who blinks and looks down as they start walking again. He takes another, longer drag and sighs it out. Now seems as good a time as any to broach the subject…

“You know, you could talk to someone.” Oliver suggests cautiously, expecting Elio to be against the idea from what Annella and Samuel have said about the past seven years. But he’s surprised.

“Do you think that would help?”

“I don’t think it could hurt.” Oliver offers. “You could just go to a doctor. Even if you don’t want to talk to someone, they have medications for this kind of thing.”

“I don’t think I want to talk to some stranger about it. I don’t know, for the longest time it’s just felt like this is me. Like this is who I am and all I can ever be… If I say it’s an illness and do this, and it still doesn’t work, where does that leave me? I can’t live like this for the rest of my life. I won’t do it.”

Oliver knows exactly what Elio is saying, but he has to stay level-headed.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” is all he has to say. 

“I remember sky…  
It was blue as ink.  
Or at least I think  
I remember sky…

….

I remember days…  
Or at least I try.  
But as years go by  
They're a sort of haze.

And the bluest ink  
Isn't really sky.  
And at times I think  
I would gladly die…

For a day…  
Of sky.”

[\- I Remember, Stephen Sondheim](https://youtu.be/fF1irOh9qiE?t=117)

So Elio goes to his doctor in town. Oliver doesn’t go into the office with him, but sits in the waiting room outside. He seems to be inside for a long time.

On the other side of the door Elio is facing the same doctor he’s had since he was a child. She seems surprised at the turn things have taken, which doesn’t surprise him. He hasn’t been back since before Oliver, never sick enough for a doctor while in Italy. He is surprised to find that after all he can still be a little embarrassed, explaining necessarily bluntly a seven year history of utter depression and indisputable alcoholism, to someone who was cracking easy jokes about puberty as his face turned red the last time he saw her. 

Alcoholism is such an ugly word, he thinks. 

He doesn’t cry as he describes the horror that has been his adult life for her records – he doesn’t feel like he _can_ cry anymore. Elio can see her deep concern at the change in him but can’t quite get himself to react to it. With a drawn mouth and a crease between her eyebrows she writes him a prescription for an antidepressant then and there, and tells him to come back in a month, emphasising that he shouldn’t expect immediate changes. 

He thanks her as he exits the room and moves to stand in front of Oliver, who is reading an old National Geographic. He waves the prescription expressionlessly and starts walking out, quickly pursued by the older man. They fill the prescription and he takes his first round of pills that night. 

He surprises himself by bursting into tears as Oliver holds him tightly afterwards.

He can still cry after all, it seems.

For a while, not much changes. The doctor said he might feel a change within two weeks but much more likely between six and eight weeks. So Elio sighs and gets on with it. Everyone tries to talk to him, to make him laugh, and sometimes they succeed but truly they’re all just holding their breath for change. 

After three weeks Oliver suggests that he should actively try to start doing things he used to love again, like reading, writing, transposing, playing piano – he started to pick up a few old things when he came home but when he went cold turkey he went back to listlessly wandering, lazing, staring, chain-smoking, sleeping all the time. Reluctantly Elio agrees, and they start to spend their days lying by the pond, Elio transposing and Oliver working on his book in the sunshine.

It’s achingly familiar. 

Elio starts writing in his diary again, and even if it’s negative things he’s writing, at least he’s doing something. He plays around on the piano, just with old songs he remembers at first, but then he gets bored and digs up his old handwritten scores and starts playing around with them again, composing new songs. 

It's strange to be coming back to himself like this - for so long he's been unsure if he's made decisions because he truly felt he should or if he made them because he was drunk... without the alcohol, with the depression finally beginning to let him breathe again... He finds that he's returning to something like himself.

Not the same person, because how could he be after so much has come to pass... But something like himself. He's felt for such a long time that who he was when he was depressed or drinking was who he truly was all along, that it surprises him how _right_ it feels when he begins to see the world differently again...

With time, he wakes up and thinks of the warmth of being held within Oliver’s arms, instead of ‘I wish I was dead’. With effort he starts to truly _want_ to write music again. With a re-opening of spirit, he even starts to laugh fully again and write about happy things as he the fills pages of his journal. 

"I wrote this for a baby  
Who has yet to be born...  
My brother's first child,  
Hope that womb's not too warm...

...

I'd like to make some changes  
Before you arrive,  
So when your new eyes meet mine  
They won't see no lies...

Just love."

[\- No Lies, Just Love, Bright Eyes](https://youtu.be/SwvWWF9l9E0?t=234)

A few months later he’s sitting at the piano, writing and transposing a new piece, as yet titled “Une barque sur l’ocean”, completely wrapped up in composition and the joy of realising a creative vision. It’s not until he’s several hours in that he stretches his muscles out and looks behind him to find his parents on the couch, his mother beaming with pride and his father with a tear in his eye, a watery smile on his lips.

“What?” He asks with a bashful smile.

“It was so beautiful.” His father says simply. “I never thought I’d get to hear you write something so wondrous again… I’m so happy to see you interested in something again.”

Elio isn’t quite sure how to respond or what to think, but his parents spare him from having to react, as his father kisses his mother on the forehead and gets up to give Elio the room. His mother follows suit shortly after, giving him a proud look and a matching kiss on his forehead.

Oliver stands in the doorway where he’d teased him with Bach seven years earlier, peeling an orange and giving him a little grin, which Elio shyly returns. He finds himself blushing and looking down as he smiles at everyone’s pride. Because honestly, though he’s never voiced it, he knows he’s come a long, long way and he’s proud of him too. 

The old Elio will never return, Oliver knows, but he thinks he likes the new one even better. Their moments of love and warmth and pleasure are all that much sweeter for how hard-won they were. 

The re-emerging flush in Elio’s cheeks and the softness of his freshly cut hair are that much more beautiful for how long they’ve been gone. Sitting around the dinner table all together at night with good food, candlelight, and laughter is that much more special and touching to all of them for how close they came to losing it forever. It all feels fresh, and new again for all of them, as their Elio seems to come up for air after being below the surface so long they weren’t sure he was ever going to come back up again.

There are still bad days, of course. Elio still has to be sure to take his pills and not let his thoughts spiral. He still has to be firm with himself as he acts on his determination to be able to continue to have a glass of wine with everybody else at dinner… But there are more good days than bad, and the bad days are bearable, and the good days are so much better than he ever thought possible again. 

“I can’t believe how close I came to losing all of this.” Elio says, holding Oliver in bed one night after a particularly slow, sweet, teased-out climax. 

“I can’t believe I ever left you here.” Oliver replies, seeming something like disappointed in himself.

“Don’t be like that.” Elio replies with a kiss to his chest. “You came back. You came back when I needed you most and you saved me.”

“Pfft, you saved yourself. I just did some measuring and counting.” Oliver gives him a small grin.

“You helped me save myself then, you goose.” Elio smiles, contentedly pressing his cheek into Oliver’s warm chest and hearing his heart beating reassuringly, steady and slow. “Truly, though. None of this is possible without you. You gave me so much, even when it seemed like I was never going to be able to pay you back.” 

“Well, in that case, I know how you can repay me.” Elio hears the words rumble through the chest under his ear. “In one lump sum.” There’s humour in Oliver’s voice.

“Hmm? And how’s that?” Elio replies playfully.

“You know how.”

“...Oh.” Elio pauses, the humour leaving his voice as the older man’s meaning dawns on him. He smiles up at the man he knows to be his soulmate, his other half, his twin soul. 

“…I love you, Elio.” He says, his voice even and earnest. The implication makes Oliver grin wide like a fool.

“I love you too, Oliver.” 

“In these demon days it's so cold inside,  
So hard for new souls to survive.  
You can't even trust the air you breathe,  
‘Cause mother earth wants us all to leave.

When lies become reality you numb yourself with drugs and TV.  
Pick yourself up it's a brand new day,  
So turn yourself round,  
Don't burn yourself, turn yourself,

Turn yourself around into the sun…”

[\- Demon Days, Gorillaz](https://youtu.be/odLERTf16GQ?t=137)


	9. Epilogue

A few months later they’re driving down the Italian coastline, Oliver at the wheel and Elio taking in the view from the passenger side. 

They’re taking a holiday before they move to Rome, where Oliver is to be a professor again and Elio is to start taking on students for the first time. It’s a life neither would have thought possible a year ago. 

Oliver turns to Elio and sees him start smiling, slow and real. The smile grows to reach his eyes, as though he’s realising something small and private for the first time as the wind ruffles his hair. 

“Why are you smiling?” Oliver asks with unrestrained amusement in his voice. Elio looks over to him with that easy, knowing smile.

“I’m happy.” He says simply with a shrug, as though actualising the thought. He smiles wider and laughs a little while taking in the view before looking back over at Oliver. 

“I didn’t think I was ever going to get to feel like this again.” He pauses for a moment before saying, “I’m so happy you came back for me.”

Oliver looks over at Elio, with his hair washed and a smile on his flushed, healthy face. He feels the image of the pale face answering the door so long ago in New York being completely erased from his mind.

“Me too.” He says. “I’m happy too.”

  
“Congratulations!  
Congratulations!  
You have survived  
Oh, you stayed alive

This life is a killer  
But, oh, what a ride  
Just to wake up each morning  
Just to open your eyes

Congratulations!”

[\- Congratulations, Kevin Morby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3icf5wSmt4&feature=youtu.be&t=18)


End file.
